In Another's Eyes
by Paxie Amor
Summary: **AU-Marvel Cinematic Universe** A stalker is targeting Antonia "Toni" Stark, which skews how she sees herself and how she allows others to see her. **WARNING: CONTAINS NON-CON**
1. Chapter 1

Toni Stark struggled with the ropes around her wrists, the ones that were securing her to the pipe she felt herself leaning against. This wasn't how she wanted to spend her rare day off from saving the world. Taking "a relaxing walk around Central Park" wasn't either, but that was Pepper's fault, not hers.

"You haven't been in New York in ages," the redheaded had reminded her. "You're not spending this beautiful day inside listening to that blue group."

"Blue Gillespie," Toni had muttered. She didn't argue though; truth be told, there were many back trails in the park that she used to find quite relaxing. She loaded up her StarkPlayer with some relaxing music (read as: AC/DC, Theory of a Dead Man and, of course, Blue Gillespie) and set off to explore.

It's not Pepper's fault that Toni has her music up so loud that it can probably be heard at Stark Tower... and it's nobody's fault but Toni's when she doesn't know she's been followed until a cloth is clapped over her nose and mouth. She can hear her own voice screaming at her not to breathe in, as well as Cap's voice insisting that she needs to train outside of her suit as well as in it... but these voices silence as her vision darkens and she feels herself slide to the ground.

That's how she got where she is, she remembers as she struggles; in addition to her bound wrists, her ankles are shackled together, there's a rope around her knees and the hood over her head is taped securely to her neck. After three months in a cave in Afghanistan, one would think she'd be over her claustrophobia... no such luck.

She becomes distracted from her escape by a pair of hands on her breasts, groping her none too gently. She lets out a gasp, more out of pure fear than surprise or pleasure; not even The Avengers, save for Natasha and Fury, know about the arc reactor in her chest. It was strong enough to power her Iron Man suit, but Toni still saw it as her greatest weakness. The thought of anyone finding out, especially someone willing to kidnap her, was terrifying...

"Let me go!" she demanded, struggling with her captor. "The Avengers will come looking for me..."

"Not for a while yet," came the reply. The voice was a male's. It was soft, calming... familiar somehow. The voice analysis was put on hold due to the fact Toni's captor was continuing to play with her breasts, despite her attempts to squirm away. "I have plenty of time."

He somehow found her nipples under the shirt and sports bra that separated his hands from her skin, and he seemed to take pleasure in tormenting them. He rolled her nipples, twisted and tugged them, chuckling softly when she was unable to hold back pleasured moans.

"Time... for what?" she asked once she was able to find her voice. His hands were back to simply groping now... one hand. The other was sliding gently up and down her side.

"To get to know you, Toni darling," he said, resting his roaming hand on her ass as the other continued to lazily massage her breast. He was close to her. She could feel his breath against her skin as he talked, sending shivers down her spine.

"Get to know me?" she asked. "When you won't even let me see your face?" He chuckled. She felt his hand moving towards her inner thigh. "Don't!" His hand reached into her baggy running shorts through a leg opening and grabbed hold of her pussy, squeezing it roughly. She couldn't hold back the moans from escaping her lips as he applied that delicious pressure; she could feel her cheeks burning in shame as he laughed at her.

"Just as I thought." Toni tensed as she felt his free hand at her neck. As he continued groping—but not entering—her, she heard a tearing sound. It was accompanied by the disappearance of the tightness around her neck. The hood was lifted slightly, barely enough for her lips to be uncovered.

"What..." Before she could finish, she felt his lips press against hers, kissing her hard. She tried to resist him, only to have him weave his fingers into her hair and grip tightly. The hand in her shorts squeezed hard as he forced his tongue into her mouth, kissing her with such a deep hatred she'd never thought one could feel in a kiss. It completely terrified her...

"I have to go now, Toni darling," he whispered in her ear after breaking the kiss and moving away from her. She was shaking; part of her was just relieved he hadn't done more, while the other was disgusted that he'd even touched her. She tensed instantly when she heard tape being pulled from a roll. She only relaxed slightly when he began wrapping it around the bag where her eyes would be, rather than her neck. "Your precious teammates will be here soon. Be sure to shout for them, won't you?" Toni nodded; he kissed her cheek. "Good girl. I'll see you again, Toni darling."

Toni waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps before calling out for her team, praying they weren't walking into a trap. She didn't get a reply until long after, just as her voice was starting to go hoarse. He lied to her. She couldn't say she was surprised.

"Good God, Stark," she heard a voice say as the hood was removed.

"You almost swore there, Cap," she replied, blinking her eyes to adjust them to the light. "Things like that lead to a sense of humor..."

"Not the time for your sass, Toni," he replied angrily, making short work of the bonds that held her. "Pepper called about two hours ago, said you'd been missing all afternoon..." He suddenly noticed that she, still seated against the pipe, was staring at him. "What?"

"You called me Toni."

"...that's your name, isn't it?"

"We've known each other almost a year; you've never called me that before." Cap frowned as he picked her up.

"Then I'm sorry for that," he said honestly. "Do you mind if I call you Toni?"

"Not at all... Steve." It was strange to call him Steve; she had never not called him Cap. There was silence for a moment. "I can walk, you know."

"I'm aware."

"Not gonna let me though?"

"Nope." Toni looked at Rogers... at Steve for a moment before shrugging her shoulders and closing her eyes.

"As you wish, White Knight." Before she fell asleep, Toni was sure she heard Steve call her an idiot.


	2. Chapter 2

Toni told them everything and regretted it. Only because she wasn't wearing her suit when she punched out Clint Barton for telling her "That's what you get for being such a cock tease." If she'd had her suit, there would be a new Clint-shaped hole in the conference room wall, rather than him merely on the floor with a broken nose.

"She broke my fucking nose!" Clint yelled, his hand trying to catch the blood dripping from his face.

"Pity it wasn't your neck," Toni hissed as she walked towards the door.

"We're not done here, Stark!" she heard Fury call after her.

"Yes we are!" she sang back, getting on the first open elevator she could find. Her plan was to collapse in a heap in the corner and stay there until she got to the basement garage, composing herself just as the door open and she was able to escape to a car. She couldn't remember if she had a car in the garage today or not. She would hail a cab if she could, take the bus if she had too. Right now, she just wanted to get the hell away from everyone, especially Clint Barton and his stupid, bleeding face.

Of course, Captain America and _his_ stupid, pretty face had to get into the elevator behind her, just in time to see her slide to the floor.

"Fuck off," she said coldly, pointing to the now closing door. "Let me have my nervous breakdown in peace. Go away."

"Are you alright?" Damn him and his stupid nice voice and clear concern for her wellbeing.

"I am not. I'm very far from alright. Alright and I are not even in the same universe anymore because someone kidnapped me for the soul purpose of chaining me to a pipe and getting into my pants. It wasn't Loki because he maintains the delusion that being a woman, I'm the best person to hold hostage; it wasn't Doom because of whatever reason Doom tends to have…" She was shaking again. "It wasn't even some random attack, it… Jesus Christ, will you just go away now?"

She didn't expect him to go away; the Boy Scout in him would never allow that. Toni also didn't expect him to sit down next to her and rest his arm over her shoulders; nor did she expect herself _not_ to flinch. She fought the tears coming to her eyes, thinking of what her father would say if he could see her right now. Thirty-six years old and holding back tears in an elevator. Howard wouldn't care about the reason, he wouldn't care that someone… he just wouldn't care.

"I'm taking you home, Toni," Steve said, rousing her from her thoughts. "Director Fury's orders; based on what you've said, it's quite obvious that you have a very determined stalker who plans on a return engagement. I'm staying with you until he's caught."

"I don't need a babysitter, Cap" she said flatly.

"You also don't need to be staying in that huge house all by yourself."

"I'm not by myself. I have Jarvis." She could somehow hear Steve rolling his eyes at her.

"Jarvis is a computer program, Toni. He's not going to be much help if this guy breaks into your house."

"Well, not right now he won't. Let me down in my workshop for a couple days and you'll be able to leave Jarvis in charge of an entire prison."

"You're not going to your workshop," Steve informed her. "You're going home, getting a shower and getting some rest." He looked down at her, directly into her eyes. The elevator stopped and Steve got to his feet, picking her up once again. "Let's get you home." Toni hoped no one was looking at her, because she was completely unable to hide the fact she was blushing.

True to his word, Steve took Toni home. They took the motorcycle he'd bought recently, an updated version of the bike he had ridden back in the 40s. He wouldn't take no for an answer when he told her to warp her arms tight around his waist as they rode. She was okay with that; his body was warm against hers and she realized that she felt _safe_ for the first time in ages.

He carried her into the house like she was somehow broken—in all actuality, she probably was—and didn't put her down until he had reached her master bedroom; had he not been such a prude, he probably would have carried her straight into the bathroom and put her in the shower. She hears him say something about dinner (oh dear god, please don't let him think about cooking; Fury's still fixing the Avenger HQ kitchen from when he tried to make pancakes) and that she should take her time. She just nodded and headed to the bathroom.

She feels sick, but she manages to hold it back as she shuts the door. She doesn't lock it, knowing that if Cap even _thinks_ she might be in trouble, he'll break the door down. He's done it before; Toni's lab at S.H.I.E.L.D HQ needed a new _wall_ following his belief that she was trapped under the car she was working on. She knows it's nothing personal; most days Cap can't even look at her, let alone care about her. He's just in the mindset that every woman who isn't Peggy Carter needs to be protected. Natasha humored him the first time; the second time, she proceeded to shoot someone she wasn't even looking at while telling Cap that his assistance in that regard would no longer be needed. Cap didn't try to rescue Natasha ever again.

"Jarvis," she said softly. "Start playlist 42, please?"

"Considering Captain Roger's tastes tonight, Miss?" came the reply. If Toni didn't know better, she'd think there was a hint of amusement in there.

"Just in here, Jarvis; Captain Rogers can pick his own music if he wants."

"Very good, Miss." Toni slid out of her clothes, wincing a little as she moved. Her muscles were stiff from her trek earlier, just before the… incident. It would be some time before she could call it what is was…

Playlist 42 began playing as Toni turned on the water and stepped underneath. It was a list of 42 songs that no one would expect her to even listen to, let alone enjoy; they were her personal answers to the mystery of life, the universe and everything. She only listened to it alone and always had Jarvis play it on shuffle so she never heard the songs the same way twice. These were songs she could sing too; let's face facts here, girls just were not meant to sing along with Tool's "Prison Sex". She also didn't like singing in front of people. That's why Playlist 42 was not public knowledge.

And tonight, Playlist 42 was a sadistic son of a bitch.

_No more talk of darkness,_

_Forget these wide-eyed fears._

_I'm here, nothing can harm you –_

_My words will warm and calm you._

Fucking John Barrowman and his god-like voice. Toni leaned back against the wall letting the water fall down on her face, as if it would somehow wash away the thoughts in her head. Thoughts of Cap; of her with Cap; of them together, in bed, kissing, cuddling, _fucking_… her eyes shot open when she realized where one of her hands had ended up during that last thought. Steve staying with her was not going to work well.

The playlist continues to be difficult; 'You Sang to Me', 'Just Feel Better', 'I Want Love', fucking '_Daughters_'… it was like the playlist was trying to bring up all of her issues at once. The problems with her dad, her own insecurities… the feelings she had for Cap, whatever they were. God, where the hell did they even come from? She didn't have them before today… did she? And if she did, what exactly was she going to do about it? Captain America liked Iron Man, but Steve Rogers _hated_ Toni Stark and that's just the way it was… wasn't it?

The song has changed again, Toni realizes. By now, her eyes are hidden by her arm, which is resting against the glass of the shower wall. The water's turned cold, but she can't bring herself to care. She just stands there, shivering, listening. Jeff Buckley; his timbre haunts her, it always has. She first heard this song in '94; 18 years old, drunk out of her mind, glad her parents aren't there to see it. God knows, to this day she can't remember _why_ she'd gotten that drunk. All she remembers is lying on the floor of her bedroom and hearing the song play. Just like she had all those years ago, she could feel herself crying. This time, however, she could also hear herself singing along.

"I heard there was a secret chord that David played and it pleased the Lord, but you don't really care for music, do you? Well it goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift. The baffled king composing Hallelujah…"

She knows the song by heart by now. It's popular, been remade many times, but this will always be _her_ version. Because no other version makes her cry like this. No other version breaks her when she gets to "it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah". No other version has ends with her lying on the floor of her shower, crying.

She hears something as the song ends. She looks up and thinks she sees the bathroom door move slightly.

"Jarvis?" she asks as she gets to her feet, turning off the water and wiping tears from her eyes. "Was someone just in here?"

"No, Miss Stark," he replied; as far as she knew, he was unable to lie to her. She'd programed him that way. "Captain Rogers is in the kitchen, trying to figure out how to warm up a pizza." She shook her head.

"Tell him to stop. I'll be out in a moment."


	3. Chapter 3

Steve finds himself in Toni's kitchen and it is a scary place indeed. He would never peg her as someone who liked to cook, yet her kitchen was stocked with every type of kitchen gadget he could imagine. And some that he couldn't, honestly.

"Jarvis?" he asked, looking up at the ceiling. He wasn't sure why he did that, he knew Jarvis wasn't a person in the ceiling. It just… it was polite to look at the person you were talking to. Even if the person was a voice in the ceiling.

"Yes, Captain?" came the reply. "How can I assist you?"

"On a scale of one to ten… how likely am I to blow something up if I try to cook dinner?"

"With ten meaning complete destruction?"

"Yes…"

"An eleven, sir." Steve gulped; apparently Toni took her kitchen very seriously. "If you'd like, sir, I could walk you through the basics of heating up a frozen pizza."

"Am I less likely to destroy things that way?"

"Yes, sir."

"Alright… give me a second, I'll ask Toni if that's okay or if she wants something else."

He goes into her bedroom and she's not in there. Still in the shower, he thinks and walks over to the door; it's just barely open and he can hear music. It's not Toni's music, it can't possibly be Toni's music. It's slow and it's soft and it's beautiful… it is nothing like that awful stuff she normally listens too. The song about a bitch coming back came to mind (Steve thinks that song is so disrespectful towards women, but Toni insists okay because she 'knows women like that and can't find any flaws with his reasoning'). This song however… it's not anything like that. He almost convinces himself that it's definitely not Toni's music when he realizes that she's singing along.

"Well, maybe there's a God above, but all I've ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya. It's not a cry that you hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light… it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah…" Her voice cracks at 'hallelujah' and Steve can't help looking in to check on her. He can see her in the shower, her silhouette through the tinted glass; her arm is against one of the walls and her head is resting on it. He hears her gasp for air and whisper "Oh god"… and he can feel his heart break as she slides to the floor, crying bitterly.

It takes every ounce of willpower he has to not go in and hold her, to promise her everything will be okay. The Toni he knows wouldn't appreciate that… and even though the Toni he's seeing now—the one crying on the floor of her shower—might appreciate it, he still turns and quietly walks away.

"Jarvis?" That's Toni's voice and he freezes in the hallway. "Was someone just in here?" He can hear the pain in her voice as she asks… there's fear there as well.

"No, Miss Stark," is the reply. "Captain Rogers is in the kitchen, trying to figure out how to warm up a pizza."

"Tell him to stop. I'll be out in a moment." Steve takes the opportunity to run back to the kitchen as quietly as possible.

"Thanks, Jarvis," he says softly.

"For what, Captain Rogers?" There's a hint of amusement in that robotic voice that Steve can't help smiling at.

"Trying to help me cook. I think I'll just wait until Toni gets out here."

"Very good, sir."

Steve looks up when he hears Toni come down the hallway; his eyes widen and he instantly finds the kitchen wallpaper _very_ interesting. He could see her staring at him out of the corner of his eye, her head cocked slightly, hand on her hip and dear _god_ didn't she look beautiful in the next to nothing she was wearing. It was going to be very hard to live with her for however long it was going to be.

"_Jesus_, Cap," she says in that half amused, half annoyed tone she has. "You can't be this innocent. You never would have survived high school!"

"We had separate locker rooms back then, Toni," he stammers, continuing to admire the overpowering use of green in that ivy leaf on the wall.

"What about when you were on tour with… what were they called? The Star Spangled girls?" She was teasing him now and he knew it.

"Separate rooms then too."

"And on stage?"

"It… it's not polite to stare…"

"Oh for fucks sake, Cap! Look at me!"

"You're not exactly _decent _right now, Toni!" he protested, trying his hardest not to blush.

"Captain Rogers!" she commanded in a voice he didn't think he could come from a figure like hers. "Captain, I order you to look at me and you will look at me now!"

"Toni, you can't pull rank on me…"

"Look at me now, _Soldier!_" He looked at her. He may have saluted, he wasn't quite sure. He was too busy taking her in.

She was, for lack of a better word, gorgeous. Her dark hair curled more when it was wet, making it look shorter than its normal length of just below her ears. Droplets of water cascaded down her Malibu tanned skin, getting soaked up by the tank top and Capri sweatpants she was wearing. She was curvy, slightly built. She had to be to wear that suit of hers.

"Girls dress like this all the time, Cap," he heard her say. "In _public_. You need to get used to this; otherwise, you will walk into oncoming traffic. Captain America will get killed by a double decker bus because he was staring at boobs… by the way, are you enjoying mine?"

"Not… not what I'm looking at…"

"Then what… oh." While her breasts were magnificent (how on earth did she wear those tight shirts of hers?), what really caught his eye was the blue light glowing right above them. "I… um… yeah. Explaining to do?" Steve nodded, watching as she drew a deep breath, looked at the ceiling and let it out with a "hoo". "Hungry?"

"Starving." She smiled and walked into the kitchen.

"I'll cook and talk, you sit and listen?" He smiled back.

"Sounds great."


	4. Chapter 4

Steve sat down on one of the bar stools around the island and watched as Toni looked through her cupboards. Watching her cook was like watching her down in her workshop. She moved quickly but efficiently, gathering everything she needed from one section before moving onto the next. She grabbed vegetables, herbs, noodles, hamburger and started combining things together in pots, pans, blenders. She had skills with a knife; frankly, it was quite terrifying.

"Have you read my file?" she asked as she worked on chopping some tomatoes.

"Can't say that I have," he admitted. Someone had offered to let him see said file, to "let him know what he was getting into" but he had declined. He liked finding things out on his own.

"Good," she continued. "It's all crap anyway. I would know, I put it together. Do you like garlic?" Before he could answer, she picked up a clove and peeled off the skin. "About… two years ago? Yeah, it was about that. I got kidnapped. Stark Enterprises sold weapons back then, I was demonstrating one and the military convoy I was with took a hit… I took one too." She tapped the blue light with her knife before starting to chop the garlic. "This arc reactor—that's what it's called, by the way—doesn't just power the Iron Man suit. It keeps the shrapnel, from one of my own weapons, from moving into my heart and killing me." She tossed the garlic into a blender with the tomatoes and some cooking wine, giving it a few quick pulses before dumping it into a pan on the back of the stove. "Take it out and I might last an hour. Used to be ten minutes, but I've made some upgrades since then."

"My god, Toni," Steve managed to say. "How the hell did you manage to install that thing?"

"I didn't! Not the original, that was another guy…" She quickly grabbed an onion and started chopping it. "Fellow prisoner, Doctor Ho Yinsen… he did it. All I did was figure out a better power source." She was crying—probably why she started chopping onions, so she could hide it—but Steve knew better than to point that out when she had a knife in her hand. "He helped me build the first Iron Man suit! We were supposed to be building a Jericho, that's the missile I was demonstrating, for this terrorist group. Called themselves the Ten Rings. Catchy, eh?" Steve shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't want to make it for them, told them to fuck off…" Her chops became slower. "But they were able to talk me into it." Steve's jaw dropped slightly.

"You mean they..?"

"Yeah, they did," she said quickly. She turned towards him, looking like she was fighting to maintain her composure. "You're the only other person _alive_ that knows that. I swear, if Pepper or Rhodey try to get me to open up about this, I will skin you and turn your hide into stilettoes." She was pointing the knife at him; definitely terrifying.

"Won't say a word," he promised. He felt sick to his stomach; those bastards had _raped_ her until she agreed to make the missile. He felt his hands clenching into fists, his knuckles turning white… her voice snapped him out of it.

"Yinsen died to get me out of there." Her voice was soft, sorrowful. Never before would Steve have imagined such tenderness to come from her. "The last thing he said to me was that I was given a second chance… and I better not waste it."

"Wow…" Toni went into a silent cooking mode for a few minutes, stirring the tomato concoction, adding elbow noodles to a pot of boiling water, frying the hamburger. Steve couldn't help wondering if he should get her to say more; had she ever talked about this before? Would it help her any? Before he could say anything, she started talking again.

"I got home and shut down the weapons division of Stark Enterprises," she informed him, still cooking away. "A lot of crazy stuff happened in there that I won't get into—guy I thought I could trust tried to murder me and steal the company, met Coulson and Fury, told the world that I was Iron Man…"

"Why Iron _Man_?" Steve asked suddenly. "Not trying to be… what's the word, sexist? But… Toni, you're a girl."

"Hard to tell in the suit though!" she said with a laugh. "When I made the announcement, everyone was already using Iron Man. I thought it was kinda catchy, even if it wasn't completely accurate, and… hell, I'm a Sabbath fan, so why not?" Steve made a mental note to find out what a "Sabbath" fan was (he was pretty sure it had nothing to do with religion, but that was it). "Before that though, the telling everyone; I'm at home. Obie—the guy I thought I could trust—had just gotten me shut out of my own company after I found out he was selling my weapons to terrorists. I'm on the couch, working on one of my gloves and on TV…" She shook her head. "What do I see? The same canyon I had been held captive in. People in the surrounding villages are being killed, their homes destroyed… and who else do I see? The same fucking _bastards_ that kidnapped me." She was quiet again, but just for a moment. "I won't say I became Iron Man completely because I wanted to change, that I wanted to become a better person. Part of it was revenge."

"Revenge?" he asked, trying not to sound judgmental. She didn't seem to take it that way; just looked at him and smiled.

"Best form of revenge is success, ain't it?" she asked. He nodded. "Since that day, I have been _successful_ at saving the world. And that helps me. It gets me through most days." Somewhere in all of this, she had strained her noodles, combined them with meat and sauce and layered the mixture with cottage cheese, topping the entire thing with parmesan and mozzarella. "Here y'are, Cap; Toni Stark's Infamous Faux Lasagna. Bon Apatite."

Steve had eaten many lasagnas in his day; how couldn't he growing up in Brooklyn? They looked nothing like the monstrosity Toni had placed in front of him. They had always been very neat and tidy (until you cut into them, anyway), but this was... glorified spaghetti. She had said "faux" though, meaning she didn't expect it to be just like lasagna, right? He needed to stop thinking about this and just start eating.

"Holy smokes," he said, inhaling bite after bite of the pasta. "This is good!"

"Seriously, Cap? 'Holy smokes'?" Toni asked, cocking an eyebrow at him. "Why not 'Gee Wiz, Batman' or 'good golly, boy wonder'?" She was smiling. _There's the Toni I know_, Steve thought as he watched her giggle at him. There was the confidant woman who wasn't held back by her sexuality, the fighter who was barely two thirds his size but more than willing to go toe to toe with him on any day, the girl who cussed and (occasionally) drank like a sailor and deep down was really just one of the boys… the Toni that he couldn't help falling for.

"Shut up, Toni," he replied without really thinking about it. She looked shocked at first, but started laughing before he could apologize.

"Oh man, you've never told me to shut up before! That was my first time. Have you ever told a woman to shut up before?" He shook his head, watching her collapse back in her chair in faked exhaustion, moaning slightly. "God, was it good for you too?" Steve rolled his eyes at her.

"You do stuff like that to get a rise out of me, don't you?"

"Of course I do." He looked at her, surprised; he hadn't expected her to admit it like that. "This may come as a shock to you Captain, but you are an _attractive_ son of a gun." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the counter and her chin on her knuckles. "Even more so when you blush. Why the hell _wouldn't_ I?" He just stared at her, completely aware that he was not only blushing, but his jaw was hanging open. She reached over and ruffled his hair, still smiling. "And now that I've broken your brain, I'm going to bed. Don't clean up in here, the dishwasher might take your arm off, I'll do it in the morning. There are plenty of bedrooms throughout the house, but the one across from mine is open if you're really paranoid. Night Cap!" It took him a moment to process all that and she was almost out of sight when he finally had.

"Hey, Toni!" She stopped, turning back towards him.

"Yeah?"

"I… thanks for dinner. You're a great cook." She smiled, nodded once and went to her room. "Smooth, Rogers," he whispered. "Real smooth."


	5. Chapter 5

Toni didn't actually go to bed that night; after Cap told her that she was a good cook she felt the overwhelming urge to build a pair of rocket boots. Cap needed a pair of rocket boots, didn't he? Of course he did, who didn't need a pair of rocket boots? …Hulk. Hulk did _not_ need a pair of rocket boots. No good would come of it.

She's about half way through making the first boot—she's based it on the designs for the Iron Man boots, but is trying to make it idiot proof to use. Voice commands, maybe, she's not sure yet—when she realizes what she told Cap at dinner. Somehow, in the midst of what was left of her trauma induced adrenaline rush, her mouth had run faster than her brain and she had told him _everything_. She rested her face in her arms on the table in front of her. She hadn't meant to tell him that…

Her body was in her workshop in New York, but her mind was back in Afghanistan. Toni couldn't forget that night if she tried; she was taken from the prison she shared with Yinsen and thrown into a smaller, darker room. She was naked, her wrists bound tightly behind her. Two men came in and they took turns fucking her. She shivers as she remembers it; the fingernails clawing at her skin, the bites on her neck, the burns her breasts, the intense pain… that's what it was about, after all. It wasn't about sex, it was about pain and power and it wasn't going to stop until she gave in. After hours and hours of their torture, she had finally agreed to make the missile.

They didn't give her back her clothes, didn't even untie her before throwing her back in with Yinsen. He didn't bat an eyelash; he untied her hands and gave her his own shirt before tending to her fresh wounds. They sat in silence until she told him that she had agreed to build the missile.

"Did you?" he asked, wrapping a bandage around a burn on her arm. "When do you start working?"

"On the missile?" she asked. "Never." Yinsen looked up at her, smiling. They spent the rest of the night planning what would become Iron Man Mach I and building the arch reactor. She slowed down for him, but only when it was obvious that he wasn't following what she was saying. They built the suit in three months, but he never got to see it in action… he died buying her time to escape. She would never forget that.

Somewhere in the midst of all of those memories, she had leaned too far back in her chair and fell onto the floor, not realizing it until the rocket boot clattered to the concrete, abruptly yanking her out of the past and back into her workshop. After assuring Jarvis that she was fine—"Just some more bruises to add to my collection, Jarvis!"—she realized that she was crying. This is how she dealt with her memories of Afghanistan most of the time, crying alone in her workshop. Probably wasn't healthy. She blinked a few times, bringing the room back to focus. She's thinking about everything she sees right now. Why didn't _anyone_ see the world the way she did? She didn't mean politics or anything, physically _see_ the world like she did.

Right now she's lying on her back on the floor of her workshop, gazing casually at the ceiling. Out of the corners of her eyes she can see various items including, but not limited to a broken lamp, Christmas lights that have been hanging up for years, the house's old fuse box that had to be replaced before she moved in, various pipes and a faux fur coat that someone had gotten her years ago. Everyone else would see this as just a random assortment of junk in the workshop of an eccentric billionaire… Toni could see it put together in at least six different ways, all of which resulted in a sort of pet for Thor. Thor was her favorite—the way he laughed in the middle of battle, swinging his hammer like a yoyo, how _couldn't_ he be?—and if he wanted some sort of pet, she was going to find a way to get him one without Fury pitching a fit. There were days when she wanted to show up at S.H.I.E.L.D. with the most adorable kitten she could find and plop it right into Thor's lap with a big red bow. _Try to make him get rid of it, Fury_, she thought. _Not even Natasha would back you on it_.

But that's not all she sees; Toni sees how _alive _this world is. She sees the life in everything, in the robots that she built to help her in the workshop (yes, even Dummy), in the roses that her gardener manages to keep alive every summer… in Cap. God, she sees so much life in him and it blinds her sometimes.

It also tends to remind her how completely _awful_ she is.

Toni would never admit it, but she didn't break Clint's nose because he was wrong. Honestly, she just wanted him to shut up and to get out of there. She would have punched _Fury_ himself if that would have given her an escape route. Clint Barton wasn't wrong about her… she was a tease. She was a tease because that kept people at a distance… and the ones that saw past that tended to get hurt. Like Pepper…

"Oh, Pepper…" she whispered, closing her eyes. She had loved Pepper. Adored her, absolutely adored her… Pepper was the only woman Toni had ever been with. She thought of the nights she had been in danger, how she had flown in to save her just in the nick of time… how she had tried so hard to be good to her. It was never going to work. They knew each other too well to stay together… but while Pepper would always tell her it was a mutual break up, Toni would always believe that the failure was her fault. They were still friends; no one knew Toni like Pepper did and probably no one ever would. She still loved her redheaded angel. She always would.

That, of course, is where everything got really fucking complicated.

Before Pepper, Toni had only been in love once. When she was a child, she had fallen hopelessly in love with Captain Steve Rogers. Not Captain America; sure, she had read all of her dad's old comic books about Captain America, she saw the films he had starred in… hell, "Star Spangled Man" was on Playlist 42 (And yes, she knew all the words). But that wasn't the man she fell for. She had read her father's old files, she had learned about the scrawny kid from Brooklyn whose heart made up 90% of his muscles. She read about how he threw himself on top of (what he thought was) a live grenade, when soldiers twice his size cowered behind whatever shelter they could find. She watched the films; not only the reconnaissance films that showed their progress in taking down HYDRA (How did her father get his hands on those?), but the films from the day he was exposed to the serum. She could hear the pain in his voice as he screamed "No! I can do this!" and the worry on her dad's face as he continued the procedure. That was the Captain she had fallen in love with… the one that was way too good for her.

"Toni?" She opened her eyes; Steve was standing over her, a concerned look on his face. She was very aware of the fact he was in just his boxers and a pair of socks. "Jarvis woke me up, said you'd fallen… are you alright?"

"No," she replied, a sad smile curling her lips. "But that's normal, so it's okay." Steve didn't seem to like this answer. He knelt down beside her and lifted her into his arms. She snuggled close to him, closing her eyes again.

"I won't let them hurt you again, Toni," he said softly as he carried her out of the workshop.

She believed him.


	6. Chapter 6

"I am not concussed," Toni said softly as Steve carried her upstairs. She was still cuddled close to him, which Steve couldn't help enjoying.

"Jarvis said you hit pretty hard," he says kindly as he backs into her room and walks her to her bed. "Does it hurt at all?" She shakes her head as he lays her down, getting her head onto the pillows and pulling the blanket up over her. The arc reactor glows through the blanket, like a nightlight. It's a little creepy, but soothing at the same time.

"Did I drink anything?" Her words surprised him; it was a simple enough question, but she sounded so ashamed to have to ask. He scanned through his memories, was there anything downstairs…

"You have not, Miss Stark," Jarvis said pleasantly. "There are no alcoholic beverages in the house, save for the cooking wine." Toni had explained cooking wine to him once before, Steve remembered. She said that she'd have to be more than desperate to want to drink that.

"Huh," she says softly, snuggling into her pillows. "Maybe I am concussed…"

"I think you're just tired," Steve tells her, though he thinks she may be right. He had seen enough concussions to know that it wasn't too bad. Slightly dazed would have been a better term than concussed. "You just need some sleep." He brushed a strand of hair out of her face. He expected her to flinch, to pull away. She doesn't move; she's already asleep.

"Can I be of any assistance, Captain Rogers?" Jarvis asks.

"Does she always get like this, Jarvis?" Steve replies. "Or is it just today, with the stress of everything?" The answer doesn't come quickly.

"Miss Stark… deals with things in her own way, Sir. When she can't, she ends up as you found her, except there is alcohol involved." Steve nodded.

"When was the last time she drank like that?" He didn't want to ask that question, but he needed to know. He needed to know if there was some way he could help her.

"Two months ago, following the building collapse." Steve looked up ceiling in surprise. He knew exactly what Jarvis was talking about.

It wasn't a super villain attack for once; a construction crew became trapped inside a building they were prepping for destruction after their explosives went off prematurely. Steve had volunteered to help, without the other Avengers. He stayed in longer than he should have, making sure everyone was out. The building came down around him and he was trapped for almost eight hours.

"Why?" Steve asked, genuinely confused. "Toni wasn't even there…"

"You do not know this, Sir," Jarvis replied. "But Director Fury had banned Miss Stark from the scene."

"What? Why?"

"He said she was too emotionally invested and that she was not needed. She came back here and found a few bottles of Mr. Stark's favorite whiskey, which she proceeded to drink."

"How many?"

"I did not keep track of that, Captain. I only know that she continued drinking until she got the word you were okay." Steve never thought an AI interface would have the ability to sound reluctant, but Jarvis pulled it off rather well.

"What aren't you telling me, Jarvis?"

"It… it hurt her, Sir," Jarvis said slowly. "It hurt her that when she arrived at S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters and was hung over, she was ridiculed… especially when it came from you." Steve looked down at the still sleeping Toni; she looked so peaceful, it was hard for him to believe she became intoxicated out of worry for him. He remembered seeing her after the building collapsed; she had been wearing the same clothes from the previous day, her hair was obviously unwashed and she was wearing large black sunglasses.

"Rough night, Stark?" Clint had asked her, not even attempting to hide the amusement in his voice.

"Fuck off, Barton, I'm not in the mood." She walked past him and stopped in front of Steve, taking a long drink out of the paper coffee cup in her hand. "Cap, good to see you." He should have known that this was as emotional as she let herself get in public. But he didn't.

"I don't have room on _my_ team for drunks, Stark," he told her flatly. "Check your problems at the door." She just stared at him for a moment, her face emotionless. He knew now that ninety percent of her feelings were conveyed through her eyes; had he been able to see her eyes, he likely would have known how much he hurt her.

"Fuck you too, Captain," she replied, giving him a quick, half salute before pushing past him. Somehow, her 5'5" frame was able to knock him back slightly.

"She came back and finished off another bottle that night," Jarvis continued, breaking Steve's train of thought. "The next day, she got rid of all the alcohol in the house, giving it away to anyone who would take it. She has been sober since." Before Steve could reply, he heard Toni whimper softly and watched her turn away from him. She was still fast asleep, but restless; a nightmare.

"Toni?" he asked softly, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Sorry, Cap," she muttered, fidgeting a little.

She always called him Cap. The rest of the team would call him Steve or Rogers when off duty (save for Thor, who always seemed to call him "brave Captain of the America"). Not Toni; whether she was in or out of the Iron Man suit, he was always Cap to her. He had to admit though, the way she said it when out of the suit was completely different from when she was in it. When she was in the suit and they were fighting, she said his name with an all business tone that he doesn't even hear from her when she's taking over companies and firing employees who she had deemed stupid. When she's in the suit and they're doing a photo op or a press conference, she rarely says his name. If she does, there's no emotion attached. But when she's not in the suit, and when he hasn't done something to earn her wrath, she says Cap with emotion. Caring. _Love_. He'd be lying if he said he didn't live for those moments when she was out of her suit and was happy and said his name…

"I let you down…" The words chilled him to the core. Steve just stared at her for a moment, watching her. She was still restless, her face was twisted with sorrow. A soft whimper escaped her lips. "Let you down." Steve hesitated only a moment before lying down next to her, holding her close. She didn't fidget and she stopped whimpering. The peaceful look was back on her face.

"No, Toni," he whispered, closing his eyes. "I let _you_ down…"


	7. Chapter 7

Toni realized two seconds after she said it that "Aw, fuck, what did I drink last night?" was not the right choice of words, regardless of where she had woken up.

The facts as she knew them were as follows: she started a pair of rocket boots, relived some bad memories from Afghanistan, fell onto the floor, thought about life and about her feelings for Cap. Thus ends the facts as she knew them. None of those facts included how she got up to her room and into the arms of Captain America. Conclusion: she had been drinking again. She was trying to think of reasons to not hate herself.

Suddenly, her mind rewound slightly. She pushed play; "in the arms of Captain America". Cap was in bed with her, holding her close… his eyes opened a little and he smiled.

"Good morning. How are yo-"

"Oh _god_," Toni moaned, pulling the blanket up over her head.

"Toni?" Steve asked, confusion expressed in his voice.

"Toni is hiding in shame!" she announced, curling herself up into a ball. She thought she might get sick.

"Why are you hiding in shame?"

"Because I have no idea how we ended up in bed together, which clearly means you saw me completely shitfaced…" Her attempts to hide her embarrassment were failing. So were Cap's attempts to pull the blanket off of her.

"Toni, come out from under the blanket."

"No."

"You _didn't_ get drunk last night," he assured her. His hand was resting on top of the blanket, right on her shoulder. "You fell off your stool in the workshop, probably got a slight concussion. I brought you up here… you got restless when I tried to leave, so I just stayed in here. We didn't do anything, we just shared the bed." She didn't answer him. "Toni?"

"I'm still not coming out," she replied. Her voice had changed slightly. She was giggling. "Are you wearing _Iron Man_ boxers?"

"They were in with the clothes I was issued!"

"Oh my god, that is adorkable!" Steve made a mental note to look up the word 'adorkable'—was that even a real word?—just before a thought hit him.

"Toni, you can see my boxer shorts!" It wasn't the boxer shorts he was worried about her seeing of course…

"Oh my god! You have a tattoo!" _That's_ what he was worried about. "How do you have a tattoo, Cap?"

"Um… no I don't?" He jumped slightly as he felt her fingers on his skin, pulling the waist band of his boxers down slightly. "Toni!"

"Holy shit, you have your _shield_ tattooed on your hip!" The blankets shook as she giggled uncontrollably. Steve shook as she stroked the tattoo on his right hip. She poked her head out from under the blanket, smiling; it was worth the blush he was wearing to see her smile like that. "When did you get this?"

"Bucky dared me to do it," Steve admitted. "He wanted to see if it would go away, since I heal quickly." He ran a hand through his hair, rubbing the back of his head. "I'd like to say I was drunk at the time…"

"But you can't get drunk," Toni finished. He nodded. "It's tasteful! You might think about getting it recolored though, it's looking a little dull." She giggled again. "Man, I can_not_ believe that you, of all people, have ink."

"Yeah… can we keep that between us?"

"Sure, if you want. Why?"

"I'm not sure the rest of the team would let me live it down." Toni rolled her eyes.

"Cap, it's not the 1940s anymore; lots of people have tattoos! In places that are not as easily covered up as yours!" She bit her bottom lip. "Do you want to see mine?" His eyes widened.

"_You_ have a tattoo?" he asked, completely stunned.

"Yeah, I got it when I was sixteen, spring break…" She hesitated. "I won't tell about yours if you don't tell about mine?"

"Okay."

"_Promise_?" she asked.

"Promise." She took a deep breath before throwing the blanket off of her. She then pulled the waistband of her capris down slightly; there was indeed a tattoo on her left hip.

"You have the same tattoo!" Steve exclaimed. She did; Toni's tattoo looked just like his. The coloring was brighter, and hers may have been a little smaller, but it was the same tattoo. "Why…"

"Excuse me, Miss Stark," Jarvis interrupted. "But Director Fury is on the line." Toni groaned, rolling her eyes as she propped herself up on her elbows.

"Put him through." She waited a second. "Director, I'm going to warn you now that I have not had coffee yet."

"We've been going over footage of your kidnapping," the Director replied, obviously not caring about her lack of coffee.

"Where did you get footage of my kidnapping?" Toni asked. She hadn't been completely paying attention when they explained how they had found her; there had been a phone call? A recording of her calling for help paired with a robotic voice giving them the address of where she was. Cap had gone in while the others maintained the perimeter. Toni had mentally questioned that idea for about two seconds before realizing one puny kidnapper may have taken her down, but he sure as hell wouldn't take down Cap.

"New security cameras in the park," Fury informed her. "Just put up recently." Toni and Steve looked at each other, both having heard something in his voice that made them grin.

"You didn't know they were there until yesterday, did you?" There was a pause. "Sir?"

"Shut it, Stark." Steve bit his tongue; Toni put a hand over her mouth. Both knew they were in for it when they started laughing hysterically. "Good morning, Captain," Fury said flatly. "Are you two children enjoying your sleepover?"

"We are!" Toni replied, the giggle still in her voice. "We did our nails last night and talked about boys and played truth or dare and oh my god it was so much fun!" Steve bit back more laughter as Fury groaned; he could just see him rubbing his forehead, trying to ward off his oncoming migraine.

"Are you done yet, Stark?"

"The depths of my sarcasm are endless, Sir."

"Noted."

"What did you find out from the footage?" Steve asks quickly, before Toni can say anything else. "Is it somebody we know?"

"We're not sure; the footage shows Toni stopping…"

"I was changing songs, I think Clint messed with my iPod again."

"You blame Clint for everything," Steve remarked.

"And I'm usually right!"

"And some_thing_ walked and grabbed her," Fury said loudly. Toni raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean, 'something'?" she asked.

"Someone else knew the cameras were there; the picture went fuzzy. We could make out figures, but no specifics."

"Any chance it could be Loki?" Toni asked. The tone of her voice was… different, Steve realized.

"Sounds like you want it to be," Fury replied. That was it; her tone was hopeful.

"Well, yeah," Toni said. "If it's Loki, I can just sick Thor on him."

"She has a point," Steve admitted. He thought about her words in the elevator yesterday; "It wasn't Loki because he maintains the delusion that being a woman, I'm the best person to hold hostage; it wasn't Doom because of whatever reason Doom tends to have… It wasn't even some random attack…" He remembered the fear in her voice, the confusion. Loki or Dr. Doom being behind the attack made some sort of sense to her; she probably would have been okay with it, despite of what had happened. But the not knowing was hurting her. It didn't help that she was completely right about that last bit; to have taken control of the video cameras like that meant that someone had planned this. But _how_?

"Fuck _no._" Steve realized right then that he'd missed something of importance. "Cap's here, I don't need…"

"You're not getting a choice, Stark," Fury said firmly. "Besides, I told you there would be reparations for that incident with Senator LeSwish."

"You agreed with me!" Steve remembered this story; how could anyone forget it?

Rowena LeSwish was a very outspoken conservative politician (Steve couldn't help thinking there was an oxymoron in there somewhere…) who decided to use Toni as a prime example of her "All Gays Are Evil Degenerates" beliefs. When Toni and Pepper broke up, she was quoted in an article saying that she was "pleased Miss Stark had returned to normal". Toni, needless to say, didn't take it well. Where LeSwish simply had an article, Toni called a press conference.

"So," Toni had said, her tone almost vicious, "according to Senator LeSwish, my recent break up has nothing to do with the fact my dear friend and I decided the relationship wasn't working. It is, apparently, because I've 'returned to normal'. I'd like to respond with the following: Normal is _not_ telling two people that love each other that they're wrong. Normal is not saying they have no right to get married. Normal is letting people do what they want, _who_ they want and when they want. Senator LeSwish, if you have such a fucking problem with gays and gay marriage, then by all means, do the rest of us a favor: Don't become gay and don't fucking _get_ gay married!"

The resulting FCC fines were outrageous (to everyone but Toni). The "Iron Man is a Fag" posters were annoying. The fan mail from across the _world_ filled Toni's mailbox for weeks. Not just her personal mail box; S.H.I.E.L.D and Stark Enterprises received mail by the ton. Toni wouldn't let anyone reply to the letters for her, she somehow did them all herself. Steve had seen some of these letters. The ones that surprised him the most were from teenagers who said they were ready to kill themselves before finding out Toni was bisexual and that her speaking out inspired them to do the same.

And apparently, Nick Fury was now punishing her for that?

"The reparations aren't coming from me, Stark," Fury said, as if he knew what Steve was thinking. It took Steve a moment to realize what he was getting at.

"You think the stalker's after her because of that!"

"I do." Fury replied. "And until I know otherwise, you and Toni will have some more company at Stark Mansion."

"Do I get any say in this?" Toni demanded.

"No. They'll be there tonight." They heard a click; the call, as well as the conversation, was over.

"Toni," Steve asked slowly. "_Who_ will be here tonight?" Toni didn't ask why he didn't know, just fell back on the bed and put a pillow over her face. He barely heard her muffled reply.

"The Avengers."


	8. Chapter 8

After sending Steve with a car to go round up the Avengers—"You'll be gone two hours, tops! I will be fine by myself for two hours, Cap!"—and cleaning up the kitchen, Toni went about trying to figure out where to put people. It wasn't that she didn't have the room for the extra four people that were about to come live with her, she wanted them to be comfortable (yes, even Toni Stark can be considerate once in a while). Toni was about eighty six percent sure the Avengers would be staying long after this whole stalker thing was settled without asking Toni if she was okay with that. The remaining fourteen percent was split between them leaving for good (3%), leaving and coming back after realizing Toni's place was much cooler (11%) or actually asking Toni if they could stay indefinitely (-89%). Therefore, she was keeping comfort in mind.

She was also thinking functionality; did she want Clint Barton shooting arrows at things in her front yard? _No_. Would she be okay with him shooting arrows at things in the _back_yard? Yes. Therefore, Clint needed a room facing the back lawn and, since she was nice, it might as well be one with a balcony for him to shoot from. She placed a sticky note with his name on a second floor bedroom.

Like Clint, Natasha needed a room facing the backyard for much the same reasons (just replace arrows with guns, throwing knives, anything with density that she can pick up). However, Toni liked Natasha much more than she liked Clint. Clint was like an annoying little brother (despite the face she was pretty sure he was older than her) who you only tolerated because your parents would kill you if you ended his existence. In this case, one needed to replace "parents" with "Nick Fury", but the analogy was correct.

Natasha did help save her life and, believe it or not, was someone Toni could actually talk to. They never had deep heart to heart conversations or anything, but Natasha was the first person to go see Toni after the breakup with Pepper. If you were to ask her, she'd insist it was on Fury's orders. Toni had a hard time believing, however, that those orders consisted of "Go to Toni's place with ice cream and let her talk to you for four hours".

And honestly, Natasha wasn't as scary as all the boys thought she was. Of course, what boy in their right mind _wouldn't_ be afraid of a woman that could kill them in six different ways before her first cup of coffee? Toni admired this. She admired this so much, that Natasha's room was not only on the third floor, but it commanded a better tactical view of the backyard. And it was diagonally above Clint's room, in case Natasha wanted to kill him in his sleep. Or, you know, short sheet his bed or something. Toni giggled contently as she placed another sticky note on Natasha's door.

Bruce's room was on the same floor as Clint's. She had already taken precautions and went onto the Think Geek website and purchased several Soft Kitty plushies. She smiled as she put one of the plushies on Bruce's bed; that was a memory she'd never forget.

The fangirl squee she had to repress upon meeting Bruce Banner would have been one of epic proportions. She settled on "Dr. Banner, I'm very pleased to meet you. Your work is unparalleled… and I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." The look Bruce had given her was one of complete confusion, but he still thanked her for the 'compliment'.

The first time he "Hulked Out", the two of them were alone in his lab (Banner had a lab and Toni had a workshop, yes they were completely different things and needed to be in completely separate rooms) and it had been over a toaster explosion. She didn't have her suit and he had wrapped one of his giant hands around her and she was gasping for air. She liked Bruce; she did not want him getting shot at because of a small accident with the toaster that may have been her fault. She needed to calm him down and do it quickly… and she could only think of one way to do it.

"Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur…" She put a hand on his arm and stroked it gently. "Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr…" She had read Banner's file; his oldest and dearest friend was a woman named Betty Ross and she was the only person who could calm the Hulk down. The only similarity between her and Toni was that they both had dark hair. Toni knew the Hulk was likely seeing her as Betty and thankfully, that was helping to relax him.

She continued singing until he had relaxed and was holding her very protectively. She managed to get to her cell phone and sent a text to _everyone_ stating that she had things under control and if they did anything to screw that up, she would ensure that all the loud speakers played nothing but Barry Manilow for the next month. When Toni wrote up her report, she had left out the part about the toaster; she instead stated the cause to be 'unknown, for I had walked out of the room and came back to enormous green rage monster'. No one, not even Fury, dared to call her on it.

She and Bruce had been friends ever since.

Thor was going to be easy to please; for him, she had chosen a room on the first floor. There wasn't going to be a kitten waiting for him, or any animal really, but she didn't have enough time to go out and get one and be back before Steve realized she had left. If Steve hadn't been part of that, she honestly wouldn't have cared and would have adopted the most adorable kitten or puppy available from the SPCA. But, Steve was. So she didn't. Yet.

Like Clint and Natasha's, Thor's room had a view of the backyard, as well as a pair of French doors leading outside, right next to the pool. Thor had a tendency to not bathe daily. Sometimes he didn't even bathe _weekly_. Toni was going to get the concept through to him; if not, the pool had chlorine and chlorine killed bacteria and she would have Cap throw him in if she had too.

Of course, Toni realized, this entire plan hinged on whether or not the pool was already clean. When was the last time that had been done? After placing a sticky note with Thor's name on the door, she went out the back to investigate the pool. She made it two steps outside the door before being grabbed from behind.

"Toni?" Steve called as he walked through the door, the rest of the Avengers right behind him. It had taken about as long as Toni said it would for him to get everyone and come back, and less time for the team to drop their stuff on the floor and run through the house like children at Christmas, wanting to see what Santa Toni had left for them. Steve told them she was picking out rooms for them; where he expected grumbling, he received excitement.

"You don't understand, Cap," Clint had said, looking as though he was attempting to repress giggles. "Toni picks out _awesome_ gifts."

"I always assumed Miss Potts did that for her," Steve admitted.

"Nah, Toni's actually good about that kind of thing. Pep just makes sure she actually remembers to get something." Honestly, that sounded about right.

"Lady of Iron!" Thor's cry echoed quickly through the house and Steve may have knocked down Natasha—oh god, he was going to die—on his way to see what the Norse god was yelling about. Steve found himself in what he believed to be the room Toni picked out for him; just outside of two glass doors was the backyard, and Thor was running through them. That's when he saw Toni; she was in the pool, clinging to the side like her life depended on it.

"Toni!" Steve rushed past Thor and over to Toni, lifting her out by the arms. "What happened?"

"It was _him_." The icy emphasis on him told everyone who he was; the stalker.

"Fuck, Stark!" Clint exclaimed. "Are you alri-"

"No, I am not!" Toni yelled. "He was in _my_ backyard!" She was shaking; Steve tried to put an arm around her, only to have it shrugged off. "_Don't_."

"What did he do?" Natasha asked, her eyes scanning the layout of the backyard.

"I was coming to check out the pool, make sure it was clean and everything and then he's suddenly _there_ and he's got my arm twisted behind my back and his hands around my throat and then he's like "hello, sweetie", god I am never going to be able to watch Doctor Who again…"

"How did you get into the pool?"

"He fucking threw me in! He hit me over the head with something and threw me in!" She was pacing now, visibly upset. "How did he know, no one knows that…"

"Knows what?" Steve asked. He regretted it.

"That I can't fucking _swim._" Clint made the mistake of chuckling; Steve was unsure who pushed him in first, Natasha or Thor. Toni pushed her way past them all and into the house.

"Toni!" Steve called. He was ignored. He looked around, first at the backyard and then at his team. "Find out how he got in."


	9. Chapter 9

After Toni had pushed past everyone, she went down to her workshop and locked herself in. Against his better judgment, Steve listened to his teammates and left her alone. The team spent that night looking over surveillance footage, trying to figure out who this bastard was. Unfortunately, the cameras were just as before; they could see figures, but not details.

Steve may have broken a coffee mug as he watched the stalker come up behind her, grabbing her just as she'd said; one hand tight around her throat, the other twisting her arm behind her back. He seemed to whisper something into her ear, causing her to struggle harder. "Hello, Sweetie", Steve assumed. He hated that someone had ruined that phrase for her. The stalker then hit her over the head with something—what is was or where it came from, he couldn't see—before shoving her into the pool and running off. Toni struggled in the water; he had somehow made sure she'd gotten right in the middle. She managed to get to the side just before Thor spotted her, only after going under two or three times. One of those times, Steve almost thought she wasn't going to come back up…

"Son of a bitch is good," Clint remarked. "He knows when she's alone, messes with the camera…"

"But _how_?" Steve asked. "It's Toni's cameras we're talking about, how could anyone… Jarvis, how did he even get onto the property?"

"I do not know, Captain."

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"No intruders showed up on my scans before or after Miss Stark was attacked."

"How is that possible?" Natasha asked. No one answered her; no one knew.

"I do not want to be the one to admit it, my friends," Thor said quietly (even quietly, Thor's voice somehow boomed throughout the house). "But we should suspect my brother." Everyone stared at him in silence. "His magic is strong. And as you said, these are Lady Iron's cameras; who else could not only know when she was alone, but make it so we could not see him?"

"Find him."

The next three days were spent searching for clues, for Loki, for other options. For Steve, they were also spent alone; Toni hadn't come out of the workshop since going in and he missed her. He was now in a house with two ninjas, a Norse god and a scientist and he still felt so alone…

At the end of the fourth day without her, he grabbed a few slices of the pizza they ordered and went to check on her. Unfortunately, the door was still locked when he got down there. Steve punched his passcode into the keypad on the side of the door; still locked.

"Jarvis, can you let me in?" he asked.

"I'm afraid not, Captain," came the reply. "Miss Stark has made it clear that she does not want anyone to disturb her."

"What's she doing in there?"

"I believe she's finished the rocket boots she started and may be creating you an Iron Man suit."

"Can you tell her to stop?"

"It would be pointless, sir."

"Yeah…" Steve thought for a moment. "Jarvis, is there an override code for the lock?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did Toni specifically tell you not to give me that code?"

"…No, sir, she did not."

"Give it to me then?"

"74RD15." Steve punched in the code, shaking his head slightly; she would pick that, wouldn't she?

"Thanks, Jarvis."

"You're welcome sir. Please don't let her reprogram me?"

"I won't." Steve looked cautiously around the workshop; he had been in there once or twice before, but he'd never been given a grand tour. It was honestly what one would expect Toni Stark's workshop to look like: robotic parts and empty coffee cups everywhere. There were also a lot of Chinese take-out boxes, some of which were still warm. "How does she get food delivered down here, Jarvis?"

"There's a back door." Steve looked to his left; sure enough, there it was. At least she'd been eating something.

"Where is she?" Steve asked, setting the pizza down on one of the workbenches. "Did she leave?" He didn't think she would have, not after what happened… but then again, she probably wasn't thinking clearly after what had happened.

"Miss Stark has a private workout room in the workshop, Captain," Jarvis replied. "It is on the other side of the room, behind the red tool chest." Steve made his way over, finding the slightly open door easily. He looked inside; Toni was in just a pair of shorts, a sports bra and a pair of sneakers. Her hands were taped up and she was beating the living hell out of punching bag, her entire body slicked with sweat. She looked exhausted… how long had she been at it?

"Toni," he said softly, putting his hand on her right shoulder. He barely moved in time to miss getting struck with she swung a left hook at him. "Toni, it's me!" She continued to swing at him; he was able to block most of them, but she was able to land a few blows to his abdomen; it was definitely hurting her more than it hurt him. She came in for another jab to his side and he was able to get his hands on her and push her away. "Toni!"

"Goddamn it, Steve, _fight me_!" He had never heard her voice like that before; the anger, the _hurt_… she was usually so good at keeping those separate. She never let anyone see that the work was getting to her. She was able to see people losing their homes, their loved ones, their lives and somehow never show it hurt her. She drank, of course, or at least used to; she was trying to stop, Steve knew that. But this wasn't about the innocent people she worked to save every day. This was about Toni.

Toni was scared and Steve could plainly see that. She wasn't scared because she felt unsafe; she was scared because she felt weak, _vulnerable_. She didn't want to be vulnerable. She wanted to prove to herself that she wasn't weak. And apparently, the best way for her to do that was to attempt to beat the hell out of Captain America. Steve moved quickly, grabbing a pair of boxing gloves and putting them on, not bothering to lace them. He couldn't go easy on her; she'd never forgive him for it. All he could do was make sure he was padded up enough not to hurt her too much. He looked her in the eye and put up his fists, positioning himself in a basic boxing stance.

"Okay."

She launched herself at him, landing a blow to his right hip and swinging her left arm towards his shoulder. He blocked the lower strike with his arm, landing one of his own to her thigh and another to her ribs. He didn't hear anything crack, thankfully. If she was hurt, she didn't let on; she came at him with everything she had and he gave it back to her. Steve could see how tired she was, but her anger and hurt overpowered her exhaustion. She wasn't going to stop until she collapsed. That was something Steve was more than happy to help her with; when she came in for a low strike, he swept her legs out from under her. He followed her down to the floor, pinning her shoulders in place. She struggled underneath him, but couldn't get up.

"Are you done now, Toni?" he demanded. "Are you fucking _done_ now?" She was panting hard, her chest heaving up and down.

"No."

Before Steve could react, Toni grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled his face down to hers, kissing him deeply. It was not unwelcome and Steve did his best to show that. It was sloppy, but he was still able to feel her passion, her yearning and he hoped she could feel his. She broke the kiss a moment later, panting harder now than she had been before the kiss. A smile curled the corners of her mouth.

"Okay…" she whispered. "Now we're done." Steve looked at her for a moment.

"The hell we are." He kissed her again and it was beyond better than the first. He was able to work his tongue into her mouth, which she opened readily for him. His hands were away from her shoulders, one on the floor by her head and the other resting lazily on her breast. She put a hand on top of his, making him squeeze lightly.

"Tell me now," she said, breaking the kiss to look up at him. "If you don't want this, tell me now and…"

"Shut up, Toni." He kissed her again, sliding his hands under her sports bra and pulling it up over her head. She gasped slightly and he looked at her, wondering if he'd hurt her. That wasn't it though; Steve suddenly noticed the marks on her breasts. They were scars, burn marks… and it wasn't just on her breasts, Steve realized; there were scars all over her torso in places that were normally hidden by her clothes. Remnants from her months in Afghanistan.

She whimpered softly and Steve looked back up at her; she was crying. He laid down next to her and held her close, kissing her on the head.

"It's alright, sweetheart," he promised, smoothing down her hair. "It's alright." He held her close as he carried her up to her room, managing to avoid anyone else (Steve didn't care if he and Toni were both consenting adults, he still had no desire to explain this). He turned away politely while she put on a nightgown and started to say his goodnights, ready to take his leave…

"I don't want you to go." He turned to look at her; she still looked completely exhausted and it worried him. "We've known each other for a year and… you work with me better than people who've known me for most of my life." She was fidgeting slightly as she spoke, shifting her weight back and forth. "I'm not ready for…" He walked over and took her hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing it tenderly. She blushed. She smiled. "That's okay then..?"

"Ye…"

"Because if it's not okay, I could find you a prostitute…"

"I don't want a prostitute, Toni…"

"It would be a pretty one, but it'd have to be a blonde or a redhead…"

"Toni…"

"I don't know if I could work with her being a brunette…"

"Shut _up_, Toni." He scooped her into his arms and fell onto the bed with her, kissing her gently. She giggled into his mouth, snuggling close to him.

"This is okay?" she asked. "You don't have to stay…"

"Toni, I _want_ to stay." Steve held her face in his hands, stroking her cheek with his thumb. "There is no place on earth I'd rather be."


	10. Chapter 10

_Almost had sex with Captain America. May be dating him now. –TS_

_Are you okay with this? –TS_

When did this happen? –PP

And are tabloids involved? –PP

_Last night. No tabloids. Long Story. –TS _

Do I need to prep Rhodey for The Talk? –PP

_Pepper, believe it or not, I'm being serious. –TS_

So am I, not for you for him –PP

_...you're making me realize it was a good thing I started freaking out before anything happened. –TS_

Not that Talk –PP

wait, what? –PP

_Oh, you want Rhodey to threaten Cap. Very nice. –TS_

Now you're catching on –PP

_And you say I'm a child. –TS_

What happened? –PP

_Nothing. I thought I said that. –TS_

Get over to the penthouse? I'll be there with coffee and ice cream in ten minutes –PP

_You live in Malibu, how does that work? –TS_

New York meeting today, just got off the plane when you first texted –PP

_Can I just pretend it's magic? It's easier than realizing that I either forgot or you didn't tell me you were coming. –TS_

Last minute thing, but yes –PP

_Okay. I'll see if Nat'll bring me over so Cap won't freak.-TS_

See you there –PP


	11. Chapter 11

Toni was surprised at how easily she was able to get Natasha to drive her to SHIELD to meet Pepper. She's was also (pleasantly) surprised that Pepper actually did have coffee and ice cream—Ben and Jerry's; Dublin Mud Slide for Toni, Chocolate Fudge Brownie for Pepper—waiting when Toni arrived at the penthouse. Toni liked the penthouse, but it didn't have a workshop and wasn't a good place for Toni to stay long term. It was good for days like today, when she needed to unwind… when she needed to have a talk with her best girlfriend. She hadn't talked to Pepper since the first kidnapping and therefore hadn't told her about the stalker; Toni didn't want to worry her, have her rush out here when she had so much else on her mind.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, taking the cup of coffee Pepper handed to her as she sat down. "Had to reassure Cap that I wasn't running off to have a 'tryst' with you."

"A tryst?" Pepper asked. "He said that, really?"

"Really." Toni sipped the coffee, smiling a little. "After I got it through to him that I just needed BFF time, I had to promise that Natasha would kill anyone that even looked at me the wrong way. I've had an interesting morning."

"Sounds like it…" They were silent for a second.

"I really have to worry more about him running off on me," Toni said definitively.

"Oh?" Pepper handed her a spoon, using her own to dive into her pint of ice cream. "Why's that?"

"He'll find a hooker with a heart of gold and forget about me. Or he'll find himself, but with girl bits…"

"I doubt that. With the types of girls who will be throwing themselves at him?" She took a bite of her ice cream, savoring the flavor for a moment. "Do you really want to leave him to those wolves?"

"Oh god," Toni replied, her mouth full of coffee fudge swirl. "He'd never survive."

"Exactly." Pepper watched Toni poke at her ice cream, dunking a spoonful into her hot coffee and eating it. "What's going on?"

"I have a stalker," Toni said, as if she was telling Pepper it would snow tomorrow. "First he kidnaps me on my run in the park, feels me up and leaves me. Then, after Fury freaks out and assigns Cap as my bodyguard, he catches me alone and throws me into the pool…" She pushed the ice cream and coffee aside, crossing her arms on the table and resting her head on them. "He got into my backyard, Pep, and I don't know how…" Pepper moved her chair closer, resting an arm around Toni's shoulder.

"We need better security then…" Toni shook her head.

"I've got the Avengers living with me now, moved in just after… I don't think I can get much more secure than that." She sighed. "So, I shut myself in the lab and built rocket boots and started an Iron Man suit for Cap and I sent you flowers, did you get the flowers? I'm really trying to remember things, I want to say it was your birthday or some other important day, tell me I was close for once?"

"I got the flowers," Pepper assured her. "Not my birthday, but it was nice to get them anyway." Toni sighed again.

"At least it wasn't strawberries, I suppose…" She told Pepper the rest of the story; getting Steve to fight her in the workout room, the kiss, the near sex experience… "We were close, Pep," she said. "We were so, so close… and I couldn't do it." Pepper moved her other hand to take Toni's, squeezing gently.

"The scars?" Toni nodded.

"I don't think I would have even shown _you_ the scars if I could have helped it. You cheated though…"

"I did…" When they were dating, Pepper had sneaked into the shower with Toni, who freaked and ran out; it took her another week before Toni could explain without freaking out. Pepper knew of the scars, and that they came from Afghanistan; she did not know the exact circumstances and if Toni had it her way, she never would. That night was the only time Pepper had seen Toni naked.

"Is that why we didn't work?" Toni asked softly. "Because I couldn't…"

"Oh sweetie." Pepper wrapped her arms around Toni, smoothing her hair and holding her tight. She had wondered if this was bothering her; the breakup had been mutual, they were still and always would be friends, but Pepper could tell something about it was eating away at Toni. So much so, that Toni left Malibu and headquartered herself in New York. "That's not it at all, we just…" She sighed, kissing the side of Toni's head. "It wasn't as good of a fit as we thought. And we tried, we both tried hard… too hard. Sometimes things just don't work, and us together was one of them." Toni moved slightly to hug Pepper, shaking as she cried softly.

"This would be easier if you had someone," Toni said after a moment, wiping her eyes but not moving to leave Pepper's embrace. "I feel bad, leaving you there alone, I don't like it…" Pepper broke the hug, looking into Toni's eyes. "I mean… I've gotten saddled with a maniacal Norse god—he's my favorite, by far—two ninjas, a green rage monster who I have to sing 'Soft Kitty" to at least once a week and Captain Fucking America… and you're in Malibu. Alone. And I don't like it." Pepper smoothed her hair, smiling tenderly.

"Natasha's been back and forth helping me out," she said. "And I've been working a lot more in New York lately, we might as well just move the rest of the office out here."

"I'd be more likely to get to meetings," Toni admitted. Pepper could see on her face that she was rewinding the conversation in her head, replaying something she thought she'd missed. "Wait, you and Natasha?" Pepper's eyes widened slightly as she took a large bite of her ice cream. "Clint said she's been running off somewhere, coming back really relaxed…"

"Yeah…" There was silence; Pepper looked up at Toni and saw that her face had changed. Her face was serious. She didn't wear that face often. "What?"

"Are you happy?" Pepper blushed a little, sipping her coffee before nodding.

"Yes… yes, I am."

"Good."

"Are you alright with that? I didn't want to make it weird, because you work together…"

"You're not going to try to give me details are you?" Pepper laughed.

"No, no details," she promised.

"What about double dates? I'm not cool with double dates, Pepper."

"No double dates either."

"Then I'm totally alright." Toni smiled, leaning over and kissing Pepper on the cheek. "You're happy. I'm _happy_ that you're happy. You know that's all I've ever wanted." She bit her bottom lip. "I feel like I should threaten Natasha… like if she hurts you or something, I'll kill her." She shook her head. "I wouldn't stand a chance…"

"What about you?" Pepper asked. Toni took a swig of her coffee.

"What about me?"

"Are you happy, with Steve? When you're not freaking out?" A small smile curled Toni's lips.

"Yeah? You know me, Pep, Steve Rogers has had my heart since I was a kid…" Pepper nodded. "And now he's here. He doesn't treat me like I'm lesser than him because I'm a girl, he makes me laugh." She swirled her cup around, watching a small coffee whirlpool form. "He is cuddly."

"Steve is _cuddly_?" Pepper asked, holding back a laugh.

"You wouldn't think that, but yeah he is…" She chuckled a little. "And last night, when I kept saying we didn't have to have sex if _he_ didn't want it… he was ready, Pep, god was he ready… but I wasn't, and that was okay…" Pepper squeezed her hand. "…He tells me to shut up, Pepper."

"Good, you need that."

"I know, right?" Toni looked at Pepper, a worried look on her face. "I'm scared, Pepper…"

"I know, sweetie. But I don't think you _have _to be."

"I don't?"

"No; one, he's already proven that he's willing to go as slow as you want. Two, you don't have to show him anything you don't want him to see…"

"He's seen just about everything; I _was_ topless last night…"

"And three, he's not the type to be bothered by a few scars. He didn't run out screaming last night, did he?" Toni shook her head. "So what's the problem?"

"I…" Toni sighed, shaking her head. "I've never been in love like this… I mean, god, I love you, Pepper, you know that. You're the best and I don't deserve you, but this…" She looked around suddenly. "Are you staying here while you're in New York? Does it need to be cleaned, I can have the place cleaned…"

"I had people over yesterday to clean it. You paid for it."

"Good… anything else I can pay for? I'm asking now, that's an improvement, right?"

"That is an improvement, yes. I'll let you know if you need to pay for anything else."

"Good… I've stopped drinking."

"I'm glad."

"…I'm stalling." Pepper smiled, giving her hand another squeeze.

"I know. Go talk to him?"

"I don't know what to say," Toni admitted. "He already knows everything…"

"Just talk to him. He might surprise you." Toni nodded.

"We… we're still okay?" Pepper laughed, giving her a hug.

"We'll always be okay, Toni," she promised. "Always."


	12. Chapter 12

Toni was not going to run off with Pepper; Steve needed to be less paranoid and he knew it.

They had talked that morning, after what happened in the workshop; Toni admitted she'd had feelings for him since she was young and he instantly stuck his foot deep into his mouth.

"For Captain America?" His tone could have been a little less condescending and he knew it. Well, he knew that _now_ at least. Toni had been hurt by that, it was visible. Before he could apologize, she stated that she was off to see Pepper; as if by magic, Natasha walked in and Toni got her to go with. Steve then asked if Toni was running back to Malibu to have a tryst with Pepper. The glares he got from both women were terrifying and were followed by a promise that anyone who even looked at Toni wrong would never be found.

In short, Steve was not having a good morning. It got worse when he heard Clint call his name.

"Hey, Cap! Rhodey's here looking for you!" Steve was unable to decide where he would be able to successfully hide before Rhodey spotted him.

"Come on," the colonel said, his voice monotone. "We're going to get a drink." Steve wasn't sure where they would be finding a drink at 10am, but he was very sure he didn't want to argue.

The drink ends up being in a bar on the other end of the city, one that Steve is pretty sure is owned by Stark Enterprises; there's no one in there but Steve, Rhodey and the bartender and Steve is suddenly worried that he's going end up with a nice pair of cement shoes. He really needed to stop watching those mob movies that Toni seemed to have an abundance of.

"Toni tell you?" Rhodey asked after a silence that describing as uncomfortable was an understatement. "That she's had a thing for you since she was a kid?" Steve nodded. "You think she meant Captain America?" Another nod. "Yeah, you're an idiot."

"I… what?" Rhodey took a swig from his bottle of Sam Adams, shaking his head.

"When most people meet you for the first time, what do they call you?"

"Captain America," Steve replied. Stupid question, really.

"And what did Tone call you?"

"Captain Am…" Steve stopped, looking towards Rhodey but not at him. "No… she called me Captain Rogers."

"Bingo." Rhodey grinned. It was not at all comforting. "Yeah, Captain America's cool and all, but Toni…" He looked at the confused captain and grinned. "She never told you?"

"Told me what?" Rhodey shook his head, muttering something; "Typical" was as close as Steve could figure. "Rhodey, tell me what?"

"That light show in her chest ain't the only problem with her heart." Rhodey turned to face Steve, a dead serious look in his eyes. "She caught pneumonia as a kid, she was seven. It was a viral strain and it about killed her heart. She needed a transplant, but…"

"But what?"

"But not even Howard Stark could get his kid's name pushed to the top of the donor list."

There was silence for a moment, each man taking another drink. The concept of transplanting organs was still relatively new to Steve; he had read about it, of course, but the idea that someone could actually take the heart from a person who had just passed on and give it to another, saving their life… it was mind boggling, yet exciting. For all its other problems, Steve had to admit that parts of the future were just brilliant.

"The waiting list was longer in the 80s than it is now," Rhodey continued. "Back then, it could take years before someone could get in; most died before they got close. Toni didn't get her transplant until she was twelve, spent most of the time in between in bed." Steve couldn't imagine someone like Toni stuck in bed for so long; five years, waiting for a surgery that might never come. The idea that someone like Howard couldn't use his influence to get her in sooner was outrageous… it made Steve wonder if there was some other reason she couldn't get in.

Steve had been a sickly child, but it had never been to the point where he was supposed to stay in bed for more than a few days, a week tops… he wouldn't have been able to do it. While he couldn't imagine it, Steve had to admit that Toni being stuck in bed so long made _sense_. It explained so much about her; how she couldn't sit still for more than five minutes before having to get up and walk around or at least start doing something, anything with her hands. It explained why she was so quick, why she loved speed and horsepower and doing things she didn't know how to do just to get a rush she felt she needed (while it was second hand knowledge to Steve, the race car in Monaco came directly to mind). She spent five years of her life in bed; some people might say "Oh, _only_ five years", but those were years when children are the most active, running around and having fun, and Toni had missed all of them. So she did what any Stark would do; she spent the rest of her life making up for lost time.

"I never knew," he said. It was all he could think to say.

"Doesn't surprise me, really," Rhodey admitted. "I mean, it's Toni we're talking about here… though I figured she would have told _you_ of all people."

"Me? Why?" Rhodey grinned at him.

"What do you think she did all that time?" Steve shook his head, having no idea. "She read your comic books. More importantly, she read your _file_."

"My… my military file?"

"No, your high school file." Steve's eyes widened; Rhodey rolled his. "Yes, the military file. She started with that, actually."

"Why?" Rhodey shrugged his shoulders.

"Why does Toni do anything? She got bored, found your file in her dad's office and started reading. Personally? I think Howard left it for her to find." Steve raised an eyebrow.

"What makes you think that?" he asked. Toni's memories of her father were always different than his. He remembered Howard as a good man; nice guy, quick with a joke… the least modest man in the world, yes, but someone that brilliant didn't really need modestly. Toni remembered him as a cold man who didn't even like her, let alone love her. It was hard for Steve to believe Toni's father and his friend were the same Howard Stark.

"Howard wasn't a good dad most of the time," Rhodey admitted. "Honestly, I don't think it was something he ever wanted and therefore, he didn't know how to deal with it. So he dealt with it the same way he'd deal with anything he didn't want; he ignored it." He took a deep breath. "But… I don't think even Howard could ignore a sick child… especially not one who reminded him of his old friend."

"…you think Toni reminded Howard of me?"

"Oh hell yes. With all the similarities between you and Toni? Your health issues before the serum? I think Howard knew he was a terrible father and letting Toni find your file, letting her read about _Steve Rogers_ and not just Captain America? I think he was trying to give her hope." What Rhodey was saying worked with Steve's memories of Howard. It made him feel better.

"Does she still have problems?" Steve asked. "With her heart, I mean?"

"She used to, off and on; the arc takes most of the stress now."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"Toni and I have been friends since we were kids. I was there for the heart problems, the surgeries… the constant "Steve Rogers is so awesome" ramblings. She loves you. And after everything that's happened to her, she _deserves_ to be happy." Rhodey's eyes narrowed slightly. "That being said, if you do _anything_ to hurt her, I will kill you. Captain America or not, your body will never be found."

Steve Rogers had once stormed a HYDRA base with just a helmet and his shield, saving the lives of many soldiers in the process. He had punched out Hitler (albeit, a fake one) over one hundred times, rode a zip line off a mountain to land on a moving train, and crashed an aircraft into the arctic, surviving seventy years frozen in ice. None of that compared to the absolute fear he just had driven into him by James Rhodes.

"Understood, Colonel." Before Rhodey could say anything else, Steve got a call on his cell phone. He looked at the number; unlisted. Fury. "Yes, sir?" he said when he answered the phone. The color ran from his face instantly. "Understood, Sir. On my way."

"What is it?" Rhodey asked, paying the tab while Steve was distracted.

"There's a giant robot attacking Brooklyn. Toni's already there, she's all alone." Rhodey got to his feet.

"What the hell are we waiting for?"


	13. Chapter 13

Getting into a fight with a robot at least fifty times her size hadn't been part of Toni's plans for the rest of the day. The plans _did_ include leaving Pepper to have some alone time with Natasha—that involved sneaking out, but was worth it—figuring out what to say to Steve—she was saying Steve more and Cap less and wasn't sure what that said about everything—getting more coffee—her favorite not-Starbucks café was less than a block from the penthouse and they made the _most_ delicious White Chocolate Caramel lattes and orange chocolate chip scones—and maybe even do some shopping at Atlantic Center. She wanted a new set of running clothes and sneakers; she burned her old ones after the first kidnapping.

The giant robot made her burst out laughing in the middle of Atlantic Avenue. It was almost like someone wanted to give her the most outlandish situation they could think of and make her deal with it herself; some sort of a twisted apology for the past few days.

"Okay," she said with a chuckle, reaching for her phone. "This I can deal with." She pushed the voice dial button on her phone. "Dread Pirate."

"Stark, I told you to change that voice command." Toni's already wide smile got wider; one day she'd figure out how he knew what her voice commands were.

"Good morning, Director!" she said cheerily. "Holding up my end of the deal; I'm not allowed to fight anything more than twice my size on my own without calling for backup; consider this a call for back up!"

"We're calling the team right now," came Nick Fury's equally cheery reply (please note, this is sarcasm). "Smile, you're on camera."

"And I still called! Aren't you proud of me?"

"You're on your own for at least five minutes. Try not to get anyone squashed."

"That only happened once and it was really mostly Hulk's fault…" The line went dead. Fury never liked listening to her excuses when she needed to be suiting up and destroying a giant robot.

Toni had gotten into the habit of carrying personally carrying her briefcase suit whenever it was practical; having anyone else carry it only put that person in danger and she wasn't going to do that. She grabbed the suit as she left that morning, despite the fact that originally she was only going to see Pepper. As she suited up, she was glad she started doing so.

"Jarvis, you with me?" She was in the air by now; she couldn't help smiling at the children pointing at her and screaming happily. She needed to start visiting kids in the suit more.

"Hello, Miss Stark," came the reply. "Have you remembered to call Director Fury in regards to the metal monstrosity before you?"

"Yes, Jarvis," she replied, rolling her eyes. "I already called him." The robot was stepping on cars as it walked down the street, swatting at her like she was a fly. She was faster than it was, but her repulsor beams were barely denting it. "Jarvis, I need you to scan the thing, find weak points!" She saw the scans on screen, indicating the back of the neck as the weakest point. In theory, she should have been able to fly around to the area in question, blast it and be done with it. Iron Man saves the day and the rest of the Avengers can deal with the clean-up.

Of course, that was when the robot's arm—which was apparently faster than the rest of it—stretched out and the hand clasped tightly around her. She let out a yell as it squeezed, barely managing to move her arms out of the way before the fingers closed around her. She did her best to try to blast the arm, hoping to at least get it to release her, but the blasts weren't enough; she was rubbing this into the faces of everyone who said that she didn't need more fire power.

"Start the party without us, Iron Man?" The voice came over Toni's intercom system, causing her to groan.

"Fuck you, Hawkeye," she replied, just before getting another squeeze. "GAH! Where the hell is everyone else?"

"Widow's getting civilians out of the way," Barton replied. "Cap's still en-route. Anything you can tell me about that thing?"

"Weak point at the back of the neck… you got those new arrows I made you?" Toni and Clint's first meeting involved a rude comment and him having to ice his nuts for a week. As an apology, Toni made him a nice set of arrows; C4 with a blasting cap built into the shaft, able to be remote detonated from a distance of up to five hundred yards. They would be perfect for this. "Hawk?"

"…"

"Barton, I made you those arrows so you could _use_ them! Not for them to look pretty on the wall!"

"They are made with C4, Toni! There is no way they're safe to carry!"

"I used to make weapons for a living, Barton! If I wanted to kill you, I would not do it with the most stable explosive compound known to man!"

"That's enough, you two!" Natasha's voice sounded over the com.

"Clint started it, Natasha!" Toni insisted.

"I did not!"

"I don't care who started it, I'll finish it!" If she wasn't getting squeezed to death by a giant robot, Toni would have laughed harder than she already was. One of these days, she would figure out exactly when her life became a freaking comic book.

"I hate to be a pain!" Toni cried as the robot tightened its grip. "But someone needs to get this fucker off me!" She could hear her armor crunching, meaning this thing was stronger than Hulk… "Where the fuck is Hulk?"

"Language, Iron Man!" The new voice calmed Toni down slightly.

"Captain, good of you to join us! Where the hell are you?"

"On the ground behind the thing, are you alright?" She could hear worry in his voice, more than normal.

"I'm alright, can you hit the back of his neck with your shield?"

"Will that stop him?"

"Probably."

"Probably?" Toni let out another yell. How the hell was that thing still able to squeeze her?

"Less talk!" she demanded. "More shield throw!" She heard a loud clang and watched as the robot's head came clean off and flew past her. She let out a sigh of relief, glad the thing wouldn't be squeezing her anymore…

"It's falling!" Clint's words sent chills through Toni's body; people were on the ground behind the robot. Steve was one of those people.

"Jarvis!" she yelled, pointing her hands and feet at the robot as it teetered backwards. "Divert all power to thrusters, now!" She activated her thrusters before Jarvis could acknowledge the order; the falling didn't cease, only slowed slightly. "How heavy is this fucking thing, Jarvis! Jarvis, divert power now!"

"Miss Stark, your current course of actions is depleting the vibranium core at an alarming rate." Well, _there_ was good news. "Any changes could…"

"I don't care, Jarvis," she yelled, louder this time. "Just fucking do it!" Her thrusters shot to life within seconds and she felt the robot stop falling. She wasn't pulling it upright, she was just keeping it steady. Her power meter was on screen—Jarvis knew better than to shout percentages to her—and it wasn't good; she was at seventy five percent and it was dropping fast. "Hawkeye! Can you shoot ropes around it or did you forget those arrows too?"

"I'm on it!"

"Iron Man!" Cap yelled. "Civilians are out of the way, let it fall!"

"And have to listen to Fury lecture about damage costs?" she cried. "No fucking way!" She didn't care about the money, of course; she'd pay for it out of her own pocket if she had to. She wasn't going to take the chance that someone didn't evacuate and ended up getting crushed… or that Cap wasn't far enough away to remain unharmed. She could see arrows flying past out of the corner of her eye. As long as they held, everything would be fine…

"Hulk's here, he'll catch the robot when it falls!" Cap's voice was pleading with her now. "Toni, you can't put that much strain…" She didn't let him finish; she didn't have to.

"Fuck, did Rhodey tell you? Jesus Christ!" She was going to kill him. Oldest friend or not, if she lived through this, James Rhodes was dead. "I can handle it!"

It was at that moment that Toni saw her power level drop to ten percent. The last thing she remembered was Steve yelling her name as her world went completely black.


	14. Chapter 14

"Toni!" Steve watched in horror as the robotic hand, still clenched around Toni, swung towards the ground. The robot was too much for the ropes Clint had strung to hold it up, breaking them the instant Toni's thrusters gave out. It was falling fast; not even Hulk would be able stand up against something that heavy falling with that much velocity… Toni had been right in her actions. Hopefully she wouldn't die not knowing that.

"Everyone, get out of the way!" he yelled. "Hulk, move!"

"ROBOT HURT HULK'S FRIEND!" came the angered reply. "HULK SMASH!"

"Move out of the way or it's going to smash you!" The robot collapsed a moment later, causing the ground to shake violently and send dust into the air. Hulk hadn't moved an inch; the beheaded robot landed about a foot in front of him. Hulk seemed to be smirking at the metal corpse, as if its falling had been his doing. Steve decided it was best to let him think that way.

"Hulk smash." Steve nodded and looked over at the robot. The dust was clearing; he could see its hand again. It had landed palm up next to the rest of the body… and Toni was still trapped in its grasp.

"Hulk!" Steve yelled, pointing at the hand. "Your friend is trapped right there, get her out!" Hulk looked over at the hand, his eyes narrowing. The hand was ripped open within seconds and Hulk was cradling Toni's prone form in his arms.

"Iron Man hurt," he said angrily. "Light not shine." Steve didn't understand him, but only for a moment. Then he saw the arc reactor; it was glowing, but just barely. She was _alive_.

"Hulk, you're faster than the rest of us," Steve told him. "You need to get her back to SHIELD now, can you do that?" The larger man nodded, holding Toni close.

"Hulk can do, tiny Captain." Before Steve could say another word, Hulk leapt into the air and was gone. Steve didn't want to let him take Toni alone; he knew she was safe with him, so that wasn't the issue. He just wanted to be there for her when she woke up. He would be there for her later; right now, he had to get the rest of his team together.

"Hawkeye, Widow!" he said over his com. "Hulk's taking Iron Man back to SHIELD; are you two alright?"

"Fine!" they say in unison and that's good enough for Steve.

"Where is Thor?" he asks, probably a lot more angrily than he meant to.

"I am sorry, Captain!" Thor landed at his side, a distressed look on his face. "I regret to inform you that this creature was sent by my brother. I attempted to apprehend him and to ask if he knew anything of the man tormenting Lady Iron, but I failed in both tasks." He hung his head slightly and Steve couldn't bring himself to be upset with the Norse god. He gave him an understanding nod, which caused Thor to smile slightly. He then looked around. "Where is Lady Iron? And the Jolly Green Giant who is not Jolly?" Steve rolled his eyes.

"Clint, I told you to stop telling him to say these things."

"That wasn't me!" Clint protested. His protests fell upon deaf ears however; after he got Thor to call Coulson "Agent 007", no one believed him.

"Let's get the area cleaned up so we can get back to SHIELD."

There was now a special team specifically tasked with cleaning up after the Avengers when they make stuff go boom and no one is happier than Steve to see them arrive and have them say "We can handle things from here; you are to report to SHIELD for debriefing". He gets back to HQ and is rushed right into a meeting with Fury. He opens and closes with one sentence.

"Toni's actions saved our asses, sir, and now if you don't mind, I'm going to make sure my teammate is alright." He walks out, despite the protests from Director Fury.

"Stark's been a bad influence on him," he hears Coulson remark. Coulson's probably right.

Toni is in a bed down in the infirmary. It's one in the back corner, away from the rest of the patients; there are no other patients, but that really doesn't matter. Toni's where she'd want to be if she'd chosen the bed herself. Steve can only see her sleeping face as he walks into the room; Bruce is seated next to her, wearing his customary post-Hulk sweat suit. His elbows are resting on the arms of the chair he's in, his chin on his knuckles. Steve can't tell if he's worried or just tired; that worries _him_.

"How is she?" he asks quietly. Bruce turns towards him and Steve is finally able to see the arc reactor in Toni's chest; it's glowing, much brighter than it was earlier. She's alive.

"Pepper got here just as I did," Bruce said. "Told me I had to 'calm the fuck down' and help her." Bruce picked up something that looked like a small burnt pop tart that had been deep fried. "It was smoking a few minutes ago."

"What is it?"

"Vibranium. Or it was, anyway." Steve's jaw dropped.

"That's the same stuff my shield's made of… and she did _that_ to it?"

"Not all in one day," Bruce assured him. "Pepper said she's had that core in for over a year, today was just the final push." Bruce sounded like he didn't even believe himself and Steve told him so. "I don't…"

"Why not?"

"That robot barely made a dent in the pavement when it hit; holding it up should _not_ have completely drained a vibranium core. It doesn't make sense." Bruce sighed, shaking his head. "Toni _should_ have been able to run on that one core for the rest of her life. It's a miracle she even thought to have a replacement…"

"That's Toni for you," Steve replied, grinning slightly. "Always planning for the impossible." He watched her for a moment; fast asleep, her chest rising and falling with each calm breath. She looked relaxed, peaceful… exhausted. "Is she going to be alright?"

"Doctor said she would," Bruce replied. "She's just wiped out; the arc took most of the stress, but when it failed…" He shrugged his shoulders. "It had to pull energy from somewhere to keep going."

"And that somewhere was Toni?"

"Apparently."

"How the hell could it even do that?"

"Knowing Toni, she probably programed it to; it took just enough energy to keep going at minimal power." Bruce looked at the sleeping brunette, smiling fondly. "Pepper explained it to me, but I still can't believe that thing's part of her… it must have hurt like hell, having it put in." Steve nodded; it hadn't occurred to him until just then that after everything else that had happened to her in Afghanistan, the one thing that kept her alive may have hurt her the most.

"Any idea when she'll wake up?" Steve asked.

"She'll be out cold for the rest of the day at least," Bruce replied. "God knows she could use the sleep, right?" Steve nodded as Bruce got to his feet. "I'm gonna grab a bite to eat. Want anything?"

"I'm good, thanks." Bruce nodded and started out. "You saved her life, Bruce," Steve called after him. "Thank you." Bruce turned back towards him, grinning a little.

"Didn't do it for you, but you're welcome." He was quiet for a second. "By the way, if you break her heart, Hulk's going to break your neck." Steve nodded.

"I've been hearing that a lot today."

After Bruce left, Steve took the chair he vacated and immersed himself in something he knew he shouldn't; trying to figure out how he could have kept this from happening. He supposed it could have started with Rhodey; the colonel had wanted to suit up and join in on the mission, but he was Army and not SHIELD and neither agency was willing to let him join in this once. Maybe if Steve had taken the time to push the issue, then Rhodey would have been there to help. Maybe he could have helped to lower the robot to the ground so Toni wouldn't have drained her Arc…

"Stop it." The voice was soft, exhausted and completely unexpected… it could only be one person.

"Toni!" he cried, taking her hand in his. Her bronze eyes were barely open as she looked at him, wincing slightly at the volume of his voice.

"Shhh," she replied, the same soft, tired tone in her voice. "No loud… head hurty… and you're doing that thing again. Stop it."

"What thing… no, don't answer that, you need to rest…" She squeezed his hand lightly, showing how weak she was after everything.

"When you think no one's watching, you go through it again. You replay the entire thing in your mind; you do it over and over again until you figure out how _you _could have changed things. You do it every time, I've watched you do it." He smoothed her hair gently, watching her lean into his touch.

"How do you know that's what I'm doing?" She shook her head, chuckling a little.

"Because I used to do it… it was a daily thing. Maybe if I had done this, I wouldn't have ended up in Afghanistan… maybe if I'd done something else any other way, my parents wouldn't have died… maybe if I'd been better, Dad would have at least liked me."

"Toni…" She looked him, lock her eyes with his. He wanted her to stop talking about this, she looked so tired, so sad…

"There's no way to go back and change things, Steve," she continued, the seriousness she was trying to convey quite apparent in her voice. "I realized that after Pepper and I broke up… and even if there was, I would I know if changing that one thing wouldn't somehow make things worse?" She took a deep breath, letting it out slow. "I'm not religious, Steve… never have been. But are many days when what helps me most is to just close my eyes…" Her eyes drooped closed as she squeezed Steve's hand a little tighter. "And say "God, give me the strength to accept the things I can't change'…" She was quiet for a moment. "If I had a point, I lost it in being philosophical and exhausted and possibly drugged. Am I drugged?"

"Morphine," Steve admitted, his hand sliding down from her hair to stroke her cheek. "You got squeezed by a giant robot, do you remember that?"

"Vaguely." She yawned, her eyes remaining closed. "Think I'm going back to sleep."

"Good idea."

"Would we get into trouble if you climbed into this bed and held me?" He chuckled; the same idea had crossed his mind not two minutes ago.

"Probably." She nodded her agreement.

"…Don't let go of my hand?" He smiled, leaning over to kiss her cheek.

"I won't."

"Awesome."


	15. Chapter 15

Sometimes Toni would dream and it was pleasant. Sometimes, she wouldn't dream of hot deserts and the pain that still haunted her after two years. Sometimes, she wouldn't dream about Obadiah Stane or Ivan Vanko or Justin Hammer (she didn't really understand why that last one was in her dreams, he wasn't that scary). Sometimes, she wouldn't even dream about her father. Sometimes, though rare, she would honestly have a good dream. Rarer still, she would realize that she was actually awake. This, however, was not one of those times.

She was still in the infirmary; the fluorescent lights were dim and the room wasn't particularly cheery, but Steve was still in a chair next to her, fast asleep and holding her hand, and that made things okay as far as she was concerned. In all actuality, she would have been reasonably convinced that she was awake, if not for one minor detail.

"Nice try, but I have a hard time believing that Nick Fury would allow a Space Unicorn in the SHIELD infirmary." It was a very pretty white, sparkly unicorn. The rainbow horn sticking out of the space helmet was a nice touch. There was no way this wasn't a dream.

"You like unicorns; I'm sure the Director knows that." Toni looked over doorway closest to her bed; Loki was there, leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed at his chest. He strolled over casually, conjuring an elegant throne next to Steve—who was still fast asleep—and sitting down.

"Thank you for the unicorn, Loki," she replied with a smile. "And the giant robot, that was a nice touch." A small grin curled his lips.

"Thor told you, then?" Toni shook her head.

"Not at all; as soon as I saw the robot, I knew you had sent it for me. To cheer me up after the awful few days I've had."

"You talk as though you don't think I'm behind your stalker."

"I don't think you aren't. I _know_ you aren't." He raised an eyebrow. "The thing with the cameras? Not your style. If you had done it, there wouldn't even have _been_ footage, nor would there have been a phone call telling SHIELD where I was. You would have tied me up in a big red bow and left me on the front steps."

"Are those the only reasons?" Loki asked coldly.

"Of course not," she replied, her voice warm, kind. "None of those are even the main reason."

"And what is the main reason, Stark?"

"The main reason is that frankly, you wouldn't do that to me. Because as much as you don't want to admit it, somehow in the midst of this comic book insanity I call my life… we became friends."

Toni felt a kinship with Loki from the moment she heard his story; he was the son who stood in the shadow of a stronger older brother, while she was the daughter who would never live up to her father's legacy. Both were masters of their craft—Loki and his magic, Toni and her robotics—and they were often shunned for it, neither having anyone that could keep up with their abilities. It was almost like having the other half of her soul staring back at her. She never intended to tell Loki she thought that way. No one told her that he could read minds.

"What was that?" Loki had hissed at her, moments after thinking that in his presence. He had come to the penthouse—she was staying there while the mansion was being fumigated—in an attempt to scare her. He threatened her with an army; she countered with a Hulk. "You see yourself equal to me?"

"Whoa, calm down, fancy pants," she said quickly. "I never sai-" His hand was around her throat in an instant, squeezing tight and lifting her off the floor. She gasped for air, her fingers fruitlessly trying to pry his away. Between realizations of how likely it was she would die, she couldn't keep her thoughts of their similarities away. She thought of her father, memories of him shunning her; of her mother and her indifference to Toni all of her life. Her eyes, filled with terror, watched Loki's soften briefly. A moment later, she was tossed out a window. She was fifty stories up and landed on a beautiful hard top corvette; no one knows how she survived. To this day, Toni secretly believed that Loki saved her.

Since then, they had a weird relationship. Loki would fight with her, but somehow never hurt her without making it obvious he wasn't trying to. She would fire repulsor blasts his way and somehow 'just' miss him. He would show up at the mansion, in mirrors and other reflective surfaces; at first, he would taunt her about things he planned to do in the future, but after a while he was showing up simply to say hello. She never talked about the Avengers and he never talked about Midgardian domination. He didn't chastise her for her drinking and she didn't mock his hair. It was a very, _very_ strange friendship, but for Toni's part, it was a friendship just the same.

"You're quite alright then, Lady Iron?" Loki asked, a smile in his voice though a smirk was on his face. Toni rolled her eyes slightly; she could never get him to call her by her first name.

"I'm fine," she promised, sitting up a bit and stretching her sore muscles. "What the hell was that robot made of?"

"I believe your primitive society calls it 'aluminum'." Toni stared blankly at him for a moment, just until she was certain he was serious. When she was, she started to laugh, doing so until tears came to her eyes.

"Aluminum, seriously? You had to have strengthened it somehow, right?" Loki nodded

"It was. I had not taken into account the durability of your Captain's shield and he dispatched my creation while I was busy with my brother… it was not meant to be destroyed until I was close enough to remove the strength enchantment…"

"Which is why it took so much energy for me to keep it from falling," Toni finished. "I appreciate the thought, Loki, I really do…"

"It is as you have said, Lady Iron," he replied softly. "You and I… are friends."

"Are you now!" Thor's voice boomed through the infirmary, shaking everything, including the space unicorn and Steve Rogers, both of whom looked very, very confused. Toni's eyes widened as the god of thunder strode quickly across the room and gathered his brother in a hearty embrace. "This warms my heart, brother, to see that you care for Lady Iron in this way!" Toni blinked. She then asked an obvious question.

"This isn't a dream, is it?"

"No," Loki replied, unable to escape Thor's embrace. "It's not."

"So… the unicorn?"

"Completely real." Toni was unable to hide her joy.

"Toni…" Steve said slowly. She looked at him, his face more angered than confused. She must have looked as worried as she felt, because he softened almost instantly. "What the hell is going on?" She looked from him, to the unicorn, to Thor and Loki, and then back to him.

"…I'm afraid you wouldn't believe me."


	16. Chapter 16

The only person Toni really explained herself to regarding Loki was Steve. Everyone else got "Yes, I'm friends with a super villain; no, I didn't tell him anything about SHIELD or the Avengers; if you don't believe me, fuck you and I'll just go back to Malibu." Strangely enough, it was an answer that everyone—even Nick Fury—accepted. Toni figured they all realized that Loki was much more mellow since he became her friend and they were all for that.

Speaking of the God of Trickery, he vanished the moment people came in to try to arrest him. Not before threatening Steve with massive bodily harm if he "so much as caused Lady Iron to frown". Steve wasn't sure there was enough of him to go around to all who had threatened him over Toni.

No one is sure what happened to the Space Unicorn.

Following another check up by the doctor on duty, Toni and Steve had their first date, which was spent in a SHIELD conference room. They ordered in Chinese—Toni paid, she said she'd let Steve pay the next time—and locked everyone out so they could talk. The talking didn't start immediately; Toni picked at her General Tso's with her chopsticks while Steve picked at his Chicken Lo Mein with a fork (he tried to call it Chinese Spaghetti, but Toni pointed out that the Chinese actually invented spaghetti noodles, so Spaghetti as Steve knew it was really Italian Lo Mein). Toni finally opened up about everything while Steve tried his first Crab Rangoon; she told him about the connection she felt with him, the talks they'd had since they day he threw her out the window…

"I still don't get how the window came into play," Steve said angrily as he attempted to use his chopsticks. "And I'm not happy he threw you out it."

Toni shrugged her shoulders. "I've been operating under the assumption that he couldn't deal with the fact I was right and just wanted an out." She took a deep breath. "Even though he threw me out a window… he gave me someone to talk to. I had just broken up with Pepper, I was part of the Avengers instead of just being a consultant, you and I weren't even friends, let alone whatever we are now…" She shook her head. "I needed a friend, Steve. Not someone who knew me inside and out, not a coworker… just a friend. And Loki seemed to need one too."

"What are we, exactly?" Steve asked. Toni looked at him, a nervous expression on her face.

"I don't know, Steve," she admitted. "I mean… hell, I know you hated me before this whole thing started, so I'd be surprised if you knew I _liked_ you…"

"Why?"

"I'm not the easiest person to get along with. I don't even like myself most of the time, so I wouldn't expect you or anyone else too."

"You really don't have a high opinion of yourself, do you?" Toni was very aware of how sad Steve's voice sounded when he asked her that.

"No," she admitted, taking a drink of her iced lemon tea. "But I fake it real well, don't I?"

"When you want to…" Toni felt his hand rest upon hers. "Toni, I would like it very much… if you and I… dated." He was bumbling and blushing and Toni found it completely adorable. Before she could answer, however, the door of the conference room burst open. Literally. Thanks to Mijolnir.

"Lady Iron!" Thor exclaimed happily. He was holding a large cardboard box in one arm and Mijolnir in the other, his smile wider than she'd ever seen it before. "I bring to you a token of my gratitude, Lady Iron!"

"For… what, exactly?" she asked, a bemused look upon her face.

"For befriending my brother, Lady Iron! Surely you have noticed the change in his demeanor; I cannot thank you enough for helping to bring about this change." Toni shook her head.

"I appreciate the sentiment, Thor, but I don't need a token… I have enjoyed Loki's friendship as much, if not more, than he's enjoyed mine." She honestly meant that and tried to ignore the twinge of hurt she saw cross Steve's face. Thor noticed nothing, of course, and set the box on the table in front of her.

"Nonsense!" he bellowed. "You must accept it, as I cannot return it." Toni shook her head, standing up to open the box.

"Alright, if you insist." Toni opened the box, her jaw dropping instantly; inside was a beautiful puppy, mostly white with marbled patches of black and gray. The puppy pounced upon Toni instantly, licking her face eagerly. Toni giggled happily, holding the dog close and scratching behind his ears in an attempt to calm him down. "Oh my god, Thor, you got me a puppy!"

"My friend Bruce says it's a Blue Merle Australian Shepherd!" Thor stated proudly. "I am told they are most noble and he will be a mighty guard dog for you!" Toni laughed as she continued to hug the energetic fur ball in her arms.

"Thor, I love him," Toni said honestly. Truth be told, she had always wanted a dog. She never got one as a child because of her health—and because her father hated animals—and she never really had time for one as she got older… now, however, seemed like a good time to have one. "Thank you so much."

"He needs a name," Steve remarked, smiling. "Any ideas?" Toni held the pup out at arms-length, looking him over. She noticed that on each of his front shoulders was a marking that looked very much like a wing; a guardian angel, almost.

"Castiel," she said, taking note of how the dog looked right at her when she spoke the name. "That's your name, isn't it boy?" She brought him close again, allowing him to lap at her face once more.

"Castiel?" Steve asked. "What's that?" Toni looked at him, grinning a bit madly.

"Don't worry, Steve, we'll marathon "Supernatural" later." Steve wasn't sure whether or not this was a good thing.

After a day of debriefings—Thor is the only one who is okay with Toni's "No, I will not try to talk Loki into turning himself in because that's just something we don't talk about; you don't see him trying to talk me into being a super villain, do you?" policy and honestly, she's okay with that because his opinion is the only one she cares about in this case—and puppy shopping, Toni is back at the mansion that evening. She's actually allowed herself to fall asleep in a public area, on the reclining portion of the large sectional couch in the main living room (there is one on each floor and really, this surprises no one). Castiel is in her lap, asleep as well and if Steve didn't think the idea was insane, he'd believe that the dog was holding her in place so she had to rest. The whole thing is the most normal by normal standards anyone as ever seen Toni and Steve only has to clear his throat once to stop Clint from taking blackmail pictures.

The sight makes Steve think about how much she has changed in his eyes since they first met.


	17. Chapter 17

May 2012

Steve Rogers hated the 21st Century.

At least what he'd seen of it, and most of the people in it.

The first medical checkup was necessary, of course. He'd been incased in ice for 70 years, super soldier or not, things were going to need to be looked at. It was every medical test he had after that that started to get on his nerves. He had just gotten back to his room—a small, grey room that looked more like a prison to him than a place he could call home—when there was a knock at his door. Normally, Steve would consider himself a patient man, but seriously, he had _just_ gotten done being poked and prodded and ran on a treadmill two hours straight and had his force strength tested with something that looked like a piece of metal tied to a punching bag (he was assured it was the latest technology, so apparently there were computer chips in there somewhere) and he was honestly just a little tired of the 21st century. So when he opened the door, he was ready to yell at whoever was standing at the other side.

He found himself face to face with his _shield_.

"I was told you had a rough day, Captain Rogers," said a female voice from behind the shield. "So, I didn't know if you'd swing first and ask questions later or what, and honestly, I'm not putting this thing down until I'm sure." Steve just stared at the shield in awed silence. It was cleaned up, slightly polished, but there were still all the scuff marks from bullets he'd deflected with it. It was definitely the shield Howard Stark made for him… "Please decide quickly, this blasted thing is heavier than it looks."

"Right, sorry…" He forgot that not everyone was used to lugging his shield around. To him, the weight felt natural, almost like it was a part of him. To everyone else, not so much. "I'm not going to hit you… may I?"

"Yes, please take it." She relinquished the shield and he slid it onto his arm. He couldn't help smiling. "I cleaned it up, but I didn't want remove the dents without asking… some people place sentimental value on those things." He nodded slightly, finally looking at her. He had to consciously restrain himself from letting his jaw drop; had Howard Stark been female, she would have been the spitting image.

"I… thank you," he managed to say. She nodded.

"Antonia Stark." That explained the resemblance to Howard, at least. "Everyone calls me Toni." She held her out hand to him; he took it in his, surprised at how firm a handshake she had.

"Steve Rogers, but I guess you knew that." His tone was a bit more wry than he intended it, and it was clear she picked up on that fact.

"Sorry, do I annoy you?" she asked flatly, her eyes narrowing slightly. "I was going to get you out of here, but if my countenance repels you thus…"

"No, no!" he replied quickly, feeling his cheeks flush. "It's not that… every time I go to introduce myself, people are like 'yes, I know', and it's just…"

"Calm down, cowboy, I get it." She grinned and Steve would be lying if he said he didn't see Howard right then. "Happens to me all the time." She turned on her heel and started down the hall. "Coming?"

"Wait, you were serious?" he asked, quickly putting his shield in his room and chasing after her. She walked remarkably fast for a woman in a perfectly tailored suit with shoes that appeared to have at least three inch heels. "You're really taking me out of here?"

"Not if you don't walk faster, I swear if I get cornered by Coulson because you won't keep up, I will pull your super soldier ass in between me and his Taser…"

"_What?_" She didn't slow her pace, which was amazing; she made it look like she was merely taking a brisk walk, while he was almost jogging just to keep up with her. She was soon at the door, Steve just behind her. A moment later, they were in the parking lot

"Get in," she said, opening the driver's side door of a beautiful convertible. It was hot rod red with gold trim and Steve had never seen a more beautiful car in his life.

"This is yours?" he asked dumbly, getting into the passenger seat.

"Twenty-Thirteen Chevy Corvette 427," she replied with a nod, buckling her seatbelt and starting the car. "Seven liter LS7 aluminum-block V8, five hundred five horsepower, top speed of one-ninety, can go from zero to sixty in three-point-eight seconds." She grinned at him. "I could have gone with something flashier, but I figured why not stick with a good American car?" Before he could answer, she put the car into gear and took off. If she noticed how tightly he was gripping the arm rest, she didn't say a word.

"So, do you work for SSR?" he asked once he swallowed his heart back into his chest. "Or whatever they're calling it now? SHIELD?"

"Yeah, SHIELD," she replied, not taking her sunglasses covered eyes off the road. "But no, I… freelance, I don't work for anybody, though I occasionally allow Fury to have his delusions." She slowed the car to a stop as they got into traffic and they sat in mostly silence. "So, what kind of tech are they letting you play with?"

"Nothing," he replied bitterly. She finally looked at him, tilting her sunglasses down so he could see the complete disbelief in her eyes.

"Seriously?"

"They get all weird about showing me any kind of technology… or anything after the 50s. That's all they've let me see yet." She shook her head, muttering something under her breath. "I'm sorry?"

"I just called them all something that probably shouldn't be repeated in polite company," she informed him.

"Oh." There was a pause. "I just wish they'd let _me_ decide when I've had too much, you know?" Tony nodded.

"It's obvious you've got questions; I am, if nothing else, a brutally honest person, so I'll answer what I can. If you want."

"I've got a lot of them!" Steve exclaimed, taking note of how she jumped slightly. "Sorry, it's just… mostly I just want someone to treat me like my head won't explode if I see something from this century. I read sci-fi as a kid! I even went to one of Howard's world of tomorrow expos, I _want _to know how much of that ended up happening and what's still science fiction." He waved his arms at the world around them. "Kids learn what's around them first and then the history, why can't they just do that with me?" He sighed heavily, frustrated; he didn't mean to be excited about it, but he hadn't been able to talk with anyone at SHILED about this, and not for a lack of trying… and Toni, for some reason, was incredibly easy to talk to.

"Oh, honey," Toni said with a grin. "The stuff he did back then and the stuff we have now? It's like comparing a Moped to a Ferrari." He had no idea what she meant, but managed to laugh anyway.

"Never got that flying car to work, then?"

"Oh yeah, he got it to work. World's just not ready for it yet."

"Still?" He would say he wasn't pouting a little, but that would be a complete lie.

"Too many people to misuse the tech."

"I suppose." They were driving a bit faster now, but Steve still had no idea where they were heading. He watched the people as they went past, most of them talking on what looked like miniature walkie-talkies… no, they were called something else. "Does everyone have a cellphone?" he asked, once he remembered what they were called. He remembered Howard talking about the technology, hardly able to believe that someday a phone would be cordless and small enough to fit in your pocket.

"Pretty much," Toni replied. "Why, would you like one? I can get you one, Stark Enterprises makes stuff like that all the time."

"Would you teach me how to use it?"

"Sure, if you want."

"I'd like that." She smiled.

"Hungry?"

"Starving."

"What would you like?" He thought about it for a moment.

"A hotdog," he said. "A good, New York hotdog." Toni grinned.

"Jarvis, you there?"

"For you, Miss Stark, always." The random voice made Steve jump a little, causing Toni to chuckle.

"Jarvis is my butler," she told him.

"And… a computer?"

"A little more complex than that, but yeah. Jarvis, don't be rude; say hello."

"Hello Captain Rogers," came the reply. "Pleased to meet you."

"Hello, Jarvis."

"Jarvis, sweetie," Toni continued. "I need the fastest route to Jimmy's Hot Dog cart, if you could bring it up please?"

The rest of the afternoon was honestly the best time Steve had had in a while. Toni didn't treat him like a toddler, she told him how things stood and didn't sugar coat her opinions. She asked what he wanted to do and they did it with no questions asked. They stopped at Stark Tower—which, Toni bragged, was almost as high as the Empire State building—where she not only got him the cellphone she promised, but a small handheld computer that she called a StarkTablet. She then proceeded to teach him how to use both; she didn't do it for him, she told him what to push and let him do it on his own. He appreciated that more than he could say.

After she brought it up, Steve asked if they could go see the Empire State Building. They were there not ten minutes later, looking out over the New York skyline as the sun was just beginning its descent. Toni had bought them both a cup of coffee and they were standing against a railing, watching the sky.

"Thank you, Toni," he said, not taking his eyes from the scenery before him. "I really needed this…"

"Least I could do, Cap," she replied, sipping her coffee. "Especially after what those morons did when you first woke up." She shook her head. "Honestly, they're supposed to be paying me to _consult_…" It took him a moment to realize she was talking about the way SHIELD tried to make him believe he was still in the 1940s when he first woke up. The trickery, while supposedly in his best interest, did not inspire confidence in anyone at SHIELD.

"What would you have done?" he asked, turning his whole body towards her. She looked at him, thoughtfully.

"I would have been there when you woke up," she replied. "I would have told you flat where you were and what happened. And then… we would have had today." She took another sip of her coffee while Steve thought about what she'd said.

"I would have preferred that."

"Most people would." She tilted her head slightly, still looking out over the city. "…Cap, you might want to duck." Steve had been in enough battles to know to duck when told to. He hit the ground just as some sort of projectile whizzed past where his head had been and crashed into the roof a few feet behind him, causing a small explosion. He looked up at Toni; she hadn't moved an inch.

"What the hell was that?" he demanded, getting to his feet. Toni nodded towards something out over the city; a green man, riding some sort of silver glider.

"Oi, Goblin!" she yelled, pushing her sunglasses up on her head. "You couldn't hit the broadside of a barn with a baseball bat!"

"Come out and play, Iron Man!" the green man taunted, throwing another projectile—Steve was sure it looked like a pumpkin—at her. She looked behind her to make sure there was no one there before side stepping the device. She shook her head, muttering; Steve heard something along the lines of "have to call Parker, this is ridiculous". She then reached down and picked up her brief case. There was something different about that brief case, Steve noticed. She had let him hold it for a brief moment when they were at Stark Tower and he had just felt there was something… odd.

When the briefcase somehow turned into a full suit of armor that could _fly,_ Steve realized that his feelings had been correct.

What came after that had been a blur; Steve had busied himself with getting civilians to safety, leaving Iron Man… no, leaving _Toni_ to take care of the strange green man—Goblin, that's what she called him—with the pumpkin bombs. It was only until he heard her now slightly robotic voice yell "And STAY down!", did he realize that the danger was over. He used a set of binoculars on the roof to find her and the Goblin; he found her hovering over her car, which she had apparently picked up and thrown at the Goblin, trapping him underneath. There were no words for this.

"Glad that's over," she said when she got back to the roof. She lifted up the faceplate of her armor, smiling at him. "You alright?" He nodded.

"Your car…"

"Yeah… I liked that car. Better my can than someone else's though. I'll just buy myself a new one." She looked back down at the ground. "Awesome, SHEILD's down there, they can handle the cleanup. We've got one more place to go before I have to take you back." She held out her hand to him; when he took it, she pulled him close and wrapped an arm around his waist. "You hold tight now." Before Steve could say anything, she shot up into the air. One of his arms was around her waist as well and he was aware of the fact he gripped her tighter.

"Where are we going?" he asked. She chuckled a little.

"I was thinking," she replied. "And I think a _lot_, this is something you're going to need to get used to… during the fight, I was thinking that I didn't know if anyone told you…"

"Told me what?" Toni stopped in mid-air; they were slightly over the ocean, Steve realized, and she was pointing at something further out in the water with her free hand.

"That your lady still stands." Steve looked where she was pointing; sure enough, standing tall on the water was the Statue of Liberty. She looked gorgeous; no one had told Steve she was still around, nor had he ever asked… "She's a bit older," Toni continued. "And her dress is a little singed, but your lady is still there."

"Thank you," he replied. He didn't know what else to say, which lead to another silence.

"Your team made it through the war, Cap. I met a few of them, good people… Peggy Carter was one of them." Steve looked at her.

"She… is she…?"

"She passed away last year." She took a deep breath. "I won't tell you not to be sad, because that is a fucking stupid thing to say to anyone. Seriously, you be sad if you want to, it is a sad thing… I will tell you though that she missed you, but she was happy. She got married sometime after the war, had kids... she named her first son Steven Roger." Steve couldn't stop the grin from covering his face; Toni was wearing one too.

"Nice of her…" He'd been side stepping the question all day; now was the time to ask it. "And Howard? He's is your dad, isn't he?" He regretted asking when the grin instantly melted off her face.

"He was," she replied. "He and my mother died about twenty years ago… and I'm gonna stop right there, if you don't mind." He nodded. More silence. "I better get you back before I get into too much more trouble..."

"What do you mean?" Steve asked. The grin came back and he was glad of it; he didn't want today to end on a sour note.

"This may come as a complete surprise to you, Cap," she said, a mischievous tone in her voice. "But I didn't have permission to take you out on the town today." His jaw dropped.

"You… you didn't…"

"I basically kidnapped you for the day." She giggled, flipping her faceplate back down. "Man, Fury is going to lose his shit when he gets his hands on me." Steve wasn't aware they had been flying back to SHIELD until she landed on the roof. "I had a great time today, Cap."

"I did too," he wholeheartedly admitted. Before he could say anything more, he heard a very loud, very _angry_ voice coming from behind him.

"STARK!" Steve turned slightly to see Director Fury heading towards them, Agent Coulson following close behind. He looked back at Toni; he couldn't see it, but he could somehow _feel_ her grinning.

"Later." She had been standing on the edge of the roof and allowed herself to fall backwards. Steve hurried and looked over the side, just as she shot up past him, flying off into the distance.

"I'll kill her," Fury said as he got to Steve's side. "Iron Man or not, I _will_ kill her." He looked at Steve. "I would like to apologize…"

"Don't."

"…what?"

"Don't apologize," Steve said. "I had a great time today with Toni."

"You… what?"

"I had a great time." Fury just stared at him.

"What exactly did you do?"

"We grabbed some hotdogs," Steve told him. "Then we hung out at her offices for a bit, she gave me these…" He took off the Stark Enterprises backpack Toni had given him and showed Coulson his new phone and tablet. "She took me to the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, answered some questions for me and then brought me back here. Honestly, after being stuck inside with all your doctors, it was great of her to get me out. I hope she does it again." There was silence for a moment.

"Coulson," Fury said flatly. "Deal with this." He walked away without another word.

"Sorry, Captain," Coulson said. "The idea of Toni doing something responsible tends to blow his mind."

"I see," Steve replied, though he really didn't.

"I'll show you her file sometime." Steve nodded, but he didn't really plan on taking Coulson up on the offer.

Later that night, Steve went down to the gym. He liked the gym, it still had that 1940s feel and it made him feel more at home than his small SHIELD quarters did. The first thing he noticed upon walking inside was the new punching bag; he had destroyed the last one recently, imagining that it was really one of the doctors that had really annoyed him. The new bag had a note on it, which he read.

_This one should last you longer. Let me know if it doesn't; I love a challenge. –TS_

Steve gave the bag a punch; it was stiff enough to barely give when he punched it, yet it somehow didn't hurt his hand at all. He smiled; he would have to call Toni later and thank her.

He had a feeling that he would be calling her a lot.


	18. Chapter 18

Steve remembered Toni telling him that her brain often worked faster than most people could talk and because of this, she would be on a whole completely different conversation while everyone else was still talking about the same thing as before. It would take her a bit, but as soon as she stopped, she found herself replaying the conversation in her mind, catching what she had missed and finally reacting to it. She once described her brain as a DVD player, which Steve agreed with (once he understood what a DVD player was and how it worked). As he carried Toni to her room, Castiel trotting along behind them, Steve was having a moment like that.

The subject had changed so quickly; even if Thor hadn't come in and interrupted them, Steve still would have missed what she said.

"_Hell, I know you hated me before this whole thing started …"_

Remembering them now, as he tucked her into bed and helped Castiel get up beside her, about crushed him; did she really think that he hated her? _How_ could she think that? After all this time, all the things they had done, how could she think that he hated her? Jarvis had said she'd been upset following the building collapse, but was there more than that? What had he done to make her think this way…

"What's wrong?" Toni's voice was soft, but not as exhausted as before. There was a bit of worry in there too. He didn't want to talk to her about it tonight, not after everything that had happened… but if it wasn't now, when would it be? "Steve?" He sat down beside her, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze.

"Do you really think I hated you all that time?" he asked. "Before the stalker?" Her eyes widened.

"Oh god," she whispered. "Did I say that out loud?"

"Toni, if I really made you feel that way…" She shook her head quickly. "Then why…?" She put her other hand to his face, stroking his cheek with her thumb.

"Didn't anyone warn you about me when you started at SHIELD?" He shook his head. "Steve, I have done some _stupid_ shit in my life. The race car in Monaco, I blew up my own house during my birthday party, I called the United States Senate a bunch of ass-clowns…"

"They deserved it," Steve said, because after seeing the clip on YouTube, he honestly believed that.

"And that's just the past couple of years, we haven't gotten into my twenties… I am a terrible person, Steve, and I know this…" She smiled a little, a tear rolling down her cheek. "And it was just so easy for me to believe that you hate me… because that was supposed keep you away."

"Why?" Steve asked, still holding one hand as the other gently rubbed his cheek. "Why would you want to keep me away?"

"Because you're better than me. You are so much better than me, Steve, and…"

"Stop." He was using his Captain America voice and it surprised her; he rarely used his Captain America voice when not on a mission or at SHIELD. "Your reasoning makes absolutely no sense, but I get it. You think you don't deserve me, because of things you've done in your past and that I would be better off staying away from you. You tell yourself that I hate you because it stopped you from even trying to start a relationship with me, because you think I'm better than you. That about right?"

"You need to take out the word "think" a few times," Toni told him.

"No I don't… Toni, I don't think you realize how much I'm in love with you."

"I… what?"

"Toni, everything you've done for me since I woke up here…" He smiled broadly at her. "I think about the day we met all the time, Toni, it was the _best_ day of my life. Before you, I wasn't really _living_ in this century, I was just existing… barely existing." His free hand found its way to the one she hand on his cheek, squeezing it gently.. "I would not have made it here without you. Without your poorly timed jokes, your laugh, the way you walk through SHIELD like you own the place… and your smile, god Toni, if I didn't get see your smile every day, I would have lost it." He thinks he's blown her mind, because she hasn't spoken yet. "You are my best friend, Toni Stark and I love you more than anything in the world… but god help me, if you don't stop being such a moron, I will slap you."

She stared at him in shock for a full minute before she had both hands on his face, pulling him down to her and kissing him. He smiled into her lips, kissing her back as his hand slid behind her head, running his fingers through her hair.

The loud bark that came next startled him; he fell off the bed and soon found himself on his back with Castiel on his chest, still barking at him. Toni was lying on the bed, laughing hysterically.

"Cas!" she called, unable to control her laughter. "Castiel, get off him!" The pup leaped off of Steve's chest and back onto the bed, guarding Toni from the 'evil' that was Steve Rogers. "Thor said he'd be a good guard dog."

"He wasn't kidding," Steve muttered. Toni was on her side, looking down on him with a smile.

"You meant everything you said, didn't you?" she asked.

"Everything. Especially the part about slapping you; you're too fantastic to think so low of yourself." A tear rolled down her cheek as she held a hand down to him. She intended to pull him up; he pulled her down to him and held her close. "And the thing I meant the most," he continued, "was when I said I love you." He kissed the top of her head. "And I understand, after everything, if you can't…"

"I love you too." It was Steve's turn to look surprised, looking down into her dark eyes that where shining brighter than he'd ever seen them before. "I mean it… I love you, Steve Rogers."


	19. Chapter 19

When Pepper stopped by later that afternoon to check on Toni, she found Steve and Toni lying on the bedroom floor, asleep in each other's arms. The new dog, Castiel—if anyone was able to steal Toni away from Steve, it would either be Robert Downey Jr. or Misha Collins—was still on the bed, seemingly enjoying having it all to himself. Pepper snapped a picture with her phone before closing the door and as long as Toni didn't find out, she'd be fine.

Pepper Potts knew Toni Stark better than most. She wouldn't say she knew her the best, as she always thought that 'honor' went to Rhodey, who had known her much longer. Rhodey would insist that Pepper knew her better of course, as Toni and Pepper had actually dated. Toni told the both of them to shut up, she was trying to figure out code. Either way, there was one thing that Pepper knew for sure: Toni looked _so_ good in love.

When Pepper started working for her, Toni was in her late teens. She had lost both of her parents and was getting ready to take over at Stark Enterprises. She was brilliant, beautiful, confident (some would say arrogant) and she used all of that to take the world by storm. All she needed was Rhodey to smooth things over with the US government and Pepper to make sure she got to meetings on time. After the first few weeks it was changed to making sure she got to meetings _period_, but that was all part of the job, wasn't it? Improvising.

Rhodey had taken the liberty of filling Pepper in on everything Toni after it was clear she'd be sticking around for more than a week; Howard Stark was not an emotional man, Maria Stark was not an affectionate woman and the result was Toni, who was described by the press as a cock tease and attention whore. It made sense, in a weird way. If she hadn't been a multi-billionaire, Pepper suspected Toni would have become a stripper/prostitute, as that's what most would assume a woman with Toni's childhood would become. But, because she _was_ a multi-billionaire, she instead became a tabloid sensation. These were comparisons that Pepper would never tell Toni she had made, as she valued her life.

In that entire time between her first day as Toni's PA and now, she had only seen Toni in love twice. The first time, thankfully, was while they were dating. The second time was now, with Steve, and it was a look that completely suited her.

Part of it, Pepper was willing to admit, could have been the fact she finally had a family. Mind you, it was a family made up of crazy people, but it was a million times more stable than anything she'd ever had before. Yes, Toni had Pepper and Rhodey and Happy and even Jarvis, but it wasn't the same as what she had now. None of them, not even Pepper lived with her on a 24/7 basis; even when they were dating, Pepper had her own penthouse apartment and still lived there most of the time. Weekends were spent at Toni's, where they kissed and cuddled, but nothing more. It made it easier when they ended things, really, as there was no uncomfortable packing of Pepper's things and moving them out.

Now, she had four men and a woman living with her on a daily basis. Before, these people only saw Toni at her best; now that they lived with her, they also saw her at her worst. They saw her after she'd been in her workshop for three days straight without eating or sleeping; they saw her when she was angry at herself because she couldn't make something work; they saw her when she hated herself. They saw her in ways she'd never let anyone see her before and none of them judged her for it. As far as Pepper could tell, they were actually _helping_. Clint was the annoying little brother—despite the fact he may actually be older than Toni—she never knew she needed. Bruce was able to bond with her on a purely intellectual level, though the fact she was somehow able to calm down Hulk didn't hurt things either. Natasha was… not complicating things and Pepper was very happy about that. Thor was Toni's favorite and a good natured older brother figure. And then there was Steve.

The night Pepper tried to be romantic and snuck into the shower with Toni was the night she realized she had competition for her heart. She almost missed the scars on her upper torso—probably would have completely if Toni hadn't drawn attention to them by trying to cover them up—because of the tattoo on her right hip. She had told Pepper once that she liked tattoos, but only if they were meaningful; they didn't have to make sense to anyone else, as long as the owner could look at their ink and know it meant _something_. She wouldn't have a tattoo any other way.

Toni's tattoo was a shield; _Cap's_ shield. If that didn't have meaning, nothing would.

Maybe if Pepper hadn't tried to push her, she and Toni would still be together. Maybe if she hadn't seen the SHIELD, she would have thought that they would have been able to work it out. She knew Toni loved her, but she would have been a fool to think she had all of Toni's heart. It ended shortly after, just before Steve was found. It was for the best, really. Not that they had failed, but that they had at least _tried_. The never knowing would have been harder on Pepper. Maybe on Toni too.

She thinks about the first time she and Toni almost kissed, the dance they'd shared beforehand. She remembered being left on the roof after Toni went to get drinks and her never returning. She learned later why that was and forgave her, but the fact she was pushed to the side still hurt, no matter how noble the reason.

It was like one of those country songs that Toni insisted she never listened to.

_And now I'm glad I didn't know_

_The way it all would end_

_The way it all would go_

_Our lives are better left to chance_

_I could have missed the pain_

_But I'd have had to miss the Dance_

She could have said no, pulled away and walked off when Toni tried to lead her to the dance floor. She could have skipped the heartache. There would have been consequences, though; without Toni, Pepper would never have found Natasha.

"Are you alright?" Natasha's voice was soft and sincerely worried and made Pepper smile. She never thought she'd be a relationship with a woman that wasn't Toni; she wasn't opposed to the idea, she just never expected it. Tasha, of course, was the definition of unexpected. She would show up in Malibu on a whim and kidnap Pepper from work, taking her to dinner or two a movie. Once she even took her to Disneyland. Natasha would get her to do all the things Pepper used to get mad at Toni for doing (but after running the company, she completely understood why Toni had done every single one) and that was okay.

"Yeah," Pepper replied, leaning into Natasha when she put an arm around her. Toni was happy. Pepper was happy. Everything was really alright.


	20. Chapter 20

This chapter would have been so much cooler if the bulleted list HTML my BFF coded for me would work on here -_-

* * *

><p>Things had been going well; the revelation that Toni and Steve were now dating came as a surprise to no one. Not even Fury had anything bad to say about the relationship, other than it better not interfere with the pair doing their job. Clint tried to make a joke; he suddenly got a piece of duct tape applied firmly to his mouth and no one is quite sure how that happened. The scream he let out when Natasha none-too-gently ripped the tape off was hilarious.<p>

That was two weeks ago. Of course, now was when everything was going to go straight to hell in a hand basket.

It was her own fault and Toni knew this. Two weeks without incident shouldn't have been enough to make her go out on her own, but wanting the White Chocolate Caramel latte and Orange Chocolate Chip scone she wasn't able to get due to a giant robot attack and not wanting to share the location of her secret caffeine hideout, she went anyway. Granted, she had Castiel with her, but the pup was barely ten weeks old and as eager as he was to protect his mistress, it didn't take much for someone to pick him up and toss him in a dumpster after Toni was knocked on the back of the head and dragged into a waiting car.

She was blindfolded by her captors, her wrists tied rather tightly; had she been less dazed by the blow, she would have struggled. Instead, her mind was racing. Someone had the gall to kidnap Toni Fucking Stark off a street in New York City in broad daylight. Her suspect pool was narrowed down slightly. If she were to couple this information with what she already knew, she might be able to figure this out before the car stopped. She probably should have tried to do this sooner, but hey, she had been getting kissed and cuddled by Captain Steve Rogers on a daily basis for the past two weeks, her priorities were slightly skewed.

The facts sheet she brought up on her mental LED screen ran something like this:

Suspect has knowledge of electronics  
>*Able to pixelate specific images on a live video feed that not even Nick Fury knows about<br>*Remember this to rub in Nick's face at a later date

Able to bypass Jarvis, making it look like they weren't even there  
>*Jarvis' New York systems were not as high quality as his systems in Malibu<br>*Probably could have been bypassed by a kindergartener with a netbook  
>*I should really fix that<p>

Suspect knows me  
>*Voice familiar<br>*Attempted to disguise; didn't completely fail, but failed enough.  
>*Knows I can't swim<br>**And that really pisses me off.  
>*Knew where I was in the house and on a random trail in central park<br>**Could be explained by electronics knowledge

Other points of interest  
>*Suspect had me chained to a pipe and all he did was feel me up<br>*Had plenty of time to rape me; didn't  
>**Implies personal vendetta, not a need for sexual gratification<br>*Action taken possibly to throw me off  
>**Theorize that I had a stalker rather than someone who wanted to kill me<br>**Who have I personally pissed off lately that isn't dead.

As she went over her list, the names of possible suspects slowly disappeared until there was only one.

"I should have known it was you." She wasn't in a car anymore. She was in a cold metal chair that wasn't comfortable to sit in, but it's not like it was meant to be. She could hear the footsteps of her captor around her. It wasn't the person who kidnapped her off the street; this was the puppet master, the man who set it all up. "Really," she continued, "all the signs were there, weren't they? The trick with the cameras, getting past Jarvis… but the thing that should have made it clear to me was what completely threw me off." She was still blindfolded, but she looked up towards where she heard the footsteps stop. "You called me 'Toni' when you've never called me anything but 'Antonia'… isn't that right, Justin?" Justin Hammer chuckled as he ripped the blindfold away from her eyes, pulling a few hairs out of her head as he did so. "How did you get out of prison?"

"Money can buy many things, Antonia," he said, that stupid, not endearing grin on his face. "Even the keys to your prison cell." Toni raised an eyebrow.

"Are you sure you used money for that, or was it something else?"

Toni has been told that most people have a sense of self-preservation; their lives must be incredibly boring.

She would say that Justin Hammer hit like a girl, but she could hit harder than he did. The fact that her lip was bleeding shouldn't be taken as a testament of pain, just that he managed to hit her in just the right spot. She spit blood at him, managing to splatter it all over the front of his suit.

"Sorry about that," she lied. He chuckled as he removed a handkerchief from his pocket, using it to wipe away some of the blood before returning the cloth to where he'd got it from. Then, in a swift motion that she'd never think him capable of, he backhanded her, knocking her and the chair she was sitting in to the floor. She landed hard on her right side, thankful that she didn't hear anything break. Her thankfulness didn't last long; the assault continued with Hammer repeatedly driving his foot into her ribcage.

"You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this, Antonia," Hammer said, grabbing her by the hair and pulling her and the chair back to an upright position. "You ruined everything, you and that redheaded bitch of yours." Pepper; Toni's blood ran cold for a moment. Pepper was with Natasha and Natasha was a fucking _ninja_. Pepper was the safest woman on earth.

"That's what this is about then?" Toni asked, breathing hard. "Revenge?" His grip on her hair tightened, causing a whimper of pain to escape her lips.

"Partially," he admitted, grinning at her. "I'm going to _destroy_ you, Antonia."

"Are you now?"

"Oh yes. By the time you're found, everyone will know all the details about your little 'stalker'. They will assume that he, whomever he was, killed you in a fit of rage. The media will probably blame that senator you pissed off and the world will mourn the loss of the great Toni Stark." He chuckled a little putting a gloved hand over her throat and squeezing. "Except me; I'll be picking up where you left off, my creations will be the new StarkTech and no one will be able stand in my way."

"Hell of a plan, Justin," Toni admitted as she gasped for air. "But you've forgotten one thing…"

"Oh really?" He tightened his grip. "What?"

"To tie my legs." Before he could respond, Toni brought her right leg up between his, hitting him as hard as she could in the groin. He doubled over, releasing his grip on her hair and throat, allowing her to use her left leg to shove him off of her. She got to her feet and started to run.

Hammer had taken her to one of his _own_ warehouses; she was really close to thinking that he'd actually planned this out carefully. Now wasn't the time to be taking cheap shots at Justin Hammer, no matter how easy he was making it for her; she needed to get her wrists untied before Hammer caught up to her.

There are no sharp objects in sight; clearly, this is the reason he's lived this long.

"Antonia!" For the first time in her life, the shiver his voice sends through her is brought on by fear rather than disgust. It's a sickening feeling, being afraid of dying at the hands of Justin Hammer, but she is quite aware that in her current state—fractured and bruised ribs, possible sprained shoulder, bloody lip and hangover caliber headache—it's a definite possibility.

She may have no sense of self preservation, but she does _not_ want to die.

Toni ducks down behind a counter and works on flexing her wrists; she watched _The A-Team _ a lot as a kid—which, really, should surprise no one—and she kind of remembered a magician's assistant telling Murdock that if one flexed their wrists when getting tied up, it would be easy to escape. Toni spent much of her childhood testing this; sometimes it worked and sometimes she had to holler for Rhodey to come untie her. The times it worked convinced her to train herself to flex her wrists any time she was getting tied up. As the rope dropped to the ground, she was glad that she had.

It was time to get out of there. Toni raised her head just above the top of the counter to look around; Hammer was nowhere in sight. Hopefully he was searching for her on the other side of the warehouse and she could find a door with relative ease. Then she'd go find her dog. Poor Cas, he must be terrified. Looking around cautiously, Toni stands up and starts back the way she came, hoping that with his current track record of stupidity, he actually kept her near the door…

"Gotcha!" She feels Hammer's arms wrap around her from behind, one around her waist and the other around her throat, pulling her close to his chest. "End of the line, Antonia," he whispers in her ear as he starts choking her.

The time Toni felt her weakest was after she announced to the world that she was Iron Man. She was a superhero in a flying suit made of the same titanium alloy that was used on NASA satellites and she felt _weak_. She was probably the strongest woman in the world, maybe even the strongest person… but only when she was in the suit. Outside of the suit, she was nothing and that made her feel weak. Shortly after, she hired a self-defense instructor, a nice woman name Marcie who probably used to be a professional wrestler. She helped Toni work out. She told her that there will always be times when she'll get knocked down; she just has to make sure she gets back up and keep fighting. But the most important thing Marcie ever told Toni was than when you get the chance to attack, you take it.

"And you never stop attacking."

Toni drove her right elbow into Hammer's stomach, feeling the air she forced out of him brush against the back of her neck. She doesn't like the feeling and showed him just how much she doesn't like it by knocking his face away, her left elbow connecting with his jaw. She followed the elbow with a right hook, left uppercut, right jab to the ribs, left to the abdomen; he bent at the waist and she drove her knee into his skull, raising her fist to punch him again.

"Toni!" She stopped. She blinked. Twice. She lowered her fist. "Honey, you can stop now…"

"Steve?" She turns around and the _entire_ team is there. They're all decked out in their battle gear and they look ready for a _war _and for some unknown reason, Clint has a few weird scratches on his arms… but they're all there and Toni can't help feeling glad to see them all. "Hi guys…" She feels herself start shaking and there's that weak feeling all over again.

"Christ, Stark," Clint says, an amazed look on his face. "What the hell did you do to him?" She's confused until she looks back to Hammer, who is lying on the floor in a puddle of his own blood.

"It was him," she manages to reply, aware of how her voice is cracking. "He did everything, the stalker, the kidnapping, he admitted to it all, maybe there are cameras or voice recordings in this place somewhere, we should…" Steve quickly strides over to her and hugs her close to him, smoothing her hair. She feels herself stop shaking almost instantly. "…Steve, I think he needs to go to the hospital."

"Yes," he replied, chuckling slightly. "And so do you."

"How about I go home and you can bring a doctor to see me? It doesn't even have to be Matt Smith, I'll settle for David Tennant."

Toni gets her way and she goes home and straight to bed. A doctor comes in and fusses over her, bandaging everything that needs to be bandaged and telling her that she needs to be on bed rest for at least a week maybe longer. There's an interesting story about what happens two days in and the team discovering a hobby of hers, but that's really a story for a different time.

Hammer goes back to jail; Toni doesn't press charges because she doesn't want to have to go through the whole court thing because the last time she went to court, she called the US Government a bunch of ass clowns and she honestly didn't want to go through all that again. Besides, she'll be ready for him if he gets out again; she'll make sure of it.

After the doctor—who is not Matt Smith or David Tennant, which is a shame—left her alone, she sat in bed with Castiel; Clint had been the one to save the dog from the dumpster, which accounted for all the marks on his arms. She scratched the dog's ears lovingly, unable to hold back a smile. The team had told her the rest of the story, how Hammer didn't pay his lackeys enough to keep their mouths shut when they were being threatened by Captain America and they told him everything. Her heart flutters when she hears what Steve did to find her and she doesn't even bother hiding it.

"Can I come in?" Toni looks up from her tablet, which she's allowed to have as long as she only uses it for peaceful activities, and smiles at her captain.

"I wasn't aware you had to ask," she replied, patting the bed beside her. Steve climbs into bed next to her, carefully putting an arm around her shoulders. Castiel looks annoyed for a moment, but then decides to climb into Steve's lap and fall asleep. Toni decides to count that as a win for Steve.

"What are you playing?" Steve asks, looking at the tablet in her hands.

"Angry Birds," Toni replied, snuggling into his embrace. "It's therapeutic, saving eggs from evil pigs by shooting birds at them." He was silent for a moment.

"The twenty first century is really strange." Toni laughed.

"Tell me about it." They're both silent until Toni starts playing again; the little red cardinals sound so happy as they soar out of the slingshot to their deaths and they both erupt into giggles. Steve kisses the top of her head and she smiles.

"Are you okay?" She's been waiting for him to ask that. She's been waiting because she's been working up the courage to tell him the truth.

"No," she replied, continuing quickly when she feels him tense. "I'm better than I was, now that it's over, you know? But… I think I need to go home, to Malibu. When I'm allowed to travel, just to get away from here for a few days. I miss warm and the beaches and…" She looked up at him, smiling a little. "And I'd _really_ like it if you came with me."

Steve responds by kissing her and she thinks that's the best answer ever.


End file.
